ere augmented by donations; reading became
fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert
their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in
a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more
intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other
countries.

When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were to
be binding upon us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the
scrivener, said to us, "You are young men, but it is scarcely probable
that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fix'd in
the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but the
instrument was after a few years rendered null by a charter that
incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the
subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's
self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to
raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's
neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that
project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and
stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to
go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In
this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it
on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily
recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will
afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom
the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged
to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice by
plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right
owner.

This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study,
for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repair'd in
some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended
for me. Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no
time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my
business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was
indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be
educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were
established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew
daily easie