[Illustration: "I was employed to carry the papers thro' the streets
to the customers"]

One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I
have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly. He was taken up,
censur'd, and imprison'd for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I
suppose, because he would not discover his author. I too was taken up
and examin'd before the council; but, tho' I did not give them any
satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and
dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound
to keep his master's secrets.

During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal,
notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the
paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my
brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an
unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libeling and
satyr. My brother's discharge was accompany'd with an order of the
House (a very odd one), that "_James Franklin should no longer print
the paper called the New England Courant_."

There was a consultation held in our printing-house among his friends,
what he should do in this case. Some proposed to evade the order by
changing the name of the paper; but my brother, seeing inconveniences
in that, it was finally concluded on as a better way, to let it be
printed for the future under the name of Benjamin Franklin; and to
avoid the censure of the Assembly, that might fall on him as still
printing it by his apprentice, the contrivance was that my old
indenture should be return'd to me, with a full discharge on the back
of it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the benefit of my
service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term,
which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however,
it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly, under
my name for several months.

At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I
took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture
to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this
advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first errata of my
life; but the unfairness of it weighed little with me, when under the
impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged
him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natur'd man:
perhaps I was