c agitations. He did not profess any particular religion, but
something of all on occasion, and had a good deal of the knave in his
composition. I began to have acquaintance among the young people that
were lovers of reading; and gaining money by industry and frugality, I
lived very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as I could.

At length my brother-in-law, master of a sloop, heard of me, and wrote
exhorting me to return, to which I answered in a letter which came under
the eyes of Sir William Keith, governor of the province. He was
surprised when he was told my age, and said that I ought to be
encouraged; if I would set up in Philadelphia he would procure me the
public business.

Sir William promised to set me up himself. I did not know his reputation
for promises which he never meant to keep, and at his suggestion I
sailed for England to choose the types. Understanding that his letters
recommendatory to a number of friends and his letter of credit to
furnish me with the necessary money, which he had failed to give me
before the ship sailed, were with the rest of his despatches, I asked
the captain for them, and when we came into the Channel he let me
examine the bag. I found none upon which my name was put as under my
care. I began to doubt his sincerity, and a fellow passenger, on my
opening the affair to him, let me into the governor's character, and
told me that no one had the smallest dependence on him.

I immediately got work at Palmer's, a famous printing-house in
Bartholomew Close, London. I was employed in composing for the second
edition of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature," and some of his reasonings
not appearing to me well-founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece
entitled "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain."
This brought me the acquaintance of Dr. Mandeville, author of the "Fable
of the Bees," a most facetious, entertaining companion. I presently left
Palmer's to work at Watts, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, and here I
continued for the rest of my eighteen months in London. But I had grown
tired of that city, and when a Mr. Denham, who was returning to
Philadelphia to open a store, offered to take me as his clerk, I gladly
accepted.

We landed in Philadelphia on October 11, 1726, where I found sundry
alterations. Keith was no longer governor; and Miss Read, to whom I had
paid some courtship, had been persuaded in my absence to marry one
Rogers, a potter. With him, however, sh