nt from him,
nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived. On his
decease, the business was continued by his widow, who, being born and
bred in Holland, where, as I have been inform'd, the knowledge of
accounts makes a part of female education, she not only sent me as
clear a state as she could find of the transactions past, but continued
to account with the greatest regularity and exactness every quarter
afterwards, and managed the business with such success, that she not
only brought up reputably a family of children, but, at the expiration
of the term, was able to purchase of me the printing-house, and
establish her son in it.

I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch
of education for our young females, as likely to be of more use to them
and their children, in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing,
by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men, and
enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house, with
establish'd correspondence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake and
go on with it, to the lasting advantage and enriching of the family.

About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a young
Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice,
and apparently extempore, most excellent discourses, which drew
together considerable numbers of different persuasion, who join'd in
admiring them. Among the rest, I became one of his constant hearers,
his sermons pleasing me, as they had little of the dogmatical kind, but
inculcated strongly the practice of virtue, or what in the religious
stile are called good works. Those, however, of our congregation, who
considered themselves as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his
doctrine, and were join'd by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him
of heterodoxy before the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became
his zealous partisan, and contributed all I could to raise a party in
his favour, and we combated for him a while with some hopes of success.
There was much scribbling pro and con upon the occasion; and finding
that, tho' an elegant preacher, he was but a poor writer, I lent him my
pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one piece in the
Gazette of April, 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with
controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the time, were soon out of
vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now exis