ers them very necessary to, and very much caressed by these poor,
deluded money hunters.

"There is certainly something very bewitching in the pursuit after
mines of gold and silver and other valuable metals, and many have been
ruined by it....

"Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long without success been a searcher
after hidden money, reflect on this, and be reclaimed from that
unaccountable folly. Let him consider that every stitch he takes when
he is on his shopboard, is picking up part of a grain of gold that will
in a few days' time amount to a pistole; and let Faber think the same
of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. Such thoughts
may make them industrious, and, in consequence, in time they may be
wealthy.

"But how absurd it is to neglect a certain profit for such a ridiculous
whimsey; to spend whole days at the 'George' in company with an idle
pretender to astrology, contriving schemes to discover what was never
hidden, and forgetful how carelessly business is managed at home in
their absence; to leave their wives and a warm bed at midnight (no
matter if it rain, hail, snow, or blow a hurricane, provided that be
the critical hour), and fatigue themselves with the violent digging for
what they shall never find, and perhaps getting a cold that may cost
their lives, or at least disordering themselves so as to be fit for no
business beside for some days after. Surely this is nothing less than
the most egregious folly and madness.

"I shall conclude with the words of the discreet friend Agricola of
Chester County when he gave his son a good plantation. 'My son,' said
he, 'I give thee now a valuable parcel of land; I assure thee I have
found a considerable quantity of gold by digging there; thee mayest do
the same; but thee must carefully observe this, _Never to dig more than
plough-deep_."

For once the illustrious Franklin shot wide of the mark. These
treasure hunters of Philadelphia, who had seen with their own eyes more
than one notorious pirate, even Blackbeard himself, swagger along Front
Street or come roaring out of the Blue Anchor Tavern by Dock Creek,
were finding their reward in the coin of romance. Digging mighty holes
for a taskmaster would have been irksome, stupid business indeed, even
for five shillings a day. They got a fearsome kind of enjoyment in
"trembling violently through fear of certain malicious demons." And
honest Peter Buckram no doubt discovered that life w