Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/88

78 dangerous period of youth, and in the hazardous ſituations in which I ſometimes found myſelf, among ſtrangers, and at a diftance from the eye and admonitions of my father. I may ſay voluntary, becauſe the errors into which I had fallen, had been in a manner the forced reſult either of my own inexperience, or the diſhoneſty of others. Thus, before I entered on my new career, I had imbibed ſolid principles, and a character of probity. I knew their value; and I made a ſolemn engagement with myſelf never to depart from them.

I had not long returned from Burlington before our printing materials arrived from London. I ſettled my accounts with Keimer, and quitted him, with his own conſent, before he had any knowledge of our plan. We found a houſe to let near the market. We took it; and to render the rent leſs burthenſome (it was then twenty-four pounds a-year, but I have ſince known it to let for ſeventy), we admitted Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, with his family, who eaſed us of a conſiderable part of it; and with him we agreed to board.

We had no ſooner unpacked our letters, and put our preſs in order, than a perſon of my acquaintance, George Houſe, brought us a countryman, whom he had met in the ſtreets enquiring for a printer. Our money was almoſt exhauſted by the number of things we had been obliged to procure. The five ſhillings we received from this countryman, the firſt fruit of our earnings, coming ſo ſeaſonably, gave me more pleaſure than any ſum I have ſince gained; and the recollection of the gratitude I felt on this occasionocaſion [sic] to George Houſe, has rendered me often more diſpoſed, than perhaps I ſhould otherwiſe have been, to encourage young beginners in trade.