airs of his country that when he finally
returned he received a place only second to that of Washington as the
champion of American independence. He died on April 17, 1790.

The first five chapters of the Autobiography were composed in England
in 1771, continued in 1784-5, and again in 1788, at which date he
brought it down to 1757. After a most extraordinary series of
adventures, the original form of the manuscript was finally printed by
Mr. John Bigelow, and is here reproduced in recognition of its value as
a picture of one of the most notable personalities of Colonial times,
and of its acknowledged rank as one of the great autobiographies of the
world.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

1706-1757

TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's,[0] 1771.

[0] The country-seat of Bishop Shipley, the good bishop,
as Dr. Franklin used to style him.--B.

DEAR SON: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes
of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the
remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the
journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally
agreeable to[1] you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which
you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's
uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to
write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements.
Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and
bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the
world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of
felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of
God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find
some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be
imitated.

[1] After the words "agreeable to" the words "some of" were
interlined and afterward effaced.--B.

That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say,
that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a
repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the
advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of
the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some
sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But
though this were denied, I should still accept the off