[Franklin Runs Away]

¶1 At length a fresh difference arising between my brother [James] and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming he would not venture to produce the new indentures [contract to work for training, room, and board]. . . When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting employment in any other printing house of the town [of Boston], by going round and speaking to every master, who accordingly refused to give me work. I then thought of going to New York as the nearest place where there was a printer . . . . but my father now siding with my brother, I was sensible that if I attempted to go openly, means would be used to prevent me . . . . So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken on board [a ship] privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket.

[Finding no work as a printer in New York, Franklin learns of a possible job opening in Philadelphia, about one hundred miles further south, and travels by boat to Amboy, a city on the coast in the colony of New Jersey.]

¶2 In the evening I found myself very feverish and went to bed; but having read some where that cold water drunk plentifully was good for fever, I followed the prescription and sweat plentifully most of the night. My fever left me and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to go to Burlington [New Jersey, just up the Delaware River from Philadelphia], where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia.

¶3 It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a good deal tired; so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night, beginning to wish I had never left home. I made so miserable a figure, too, that I found by the questions asked me, I was suspected to be some runaway indentured servant and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded next day and got in the evening to an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and finding I had read a little, became very obliging and friendly. Our acquaintance continued all the rest of his life. He had been I imagine, an ambulatory quack doctor, for there was no town in England nor any country in Europe of which he could not give a very particular account. He had some letters [knowledge of literature] and was ingenious, but he was an infidel, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to turn the Bible into doggerel [parody] verse . . . . By this means he set many facts in a ridiculous light, and might have done mischief with weak minds if his work had been published, but it never was.

¶4 At his house I lay that night, and arrived the next morning at Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone a little before, and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday. Wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had bought some gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her advice. She proposed to lodge me till a passage by some other boat occurred. I accepted her offer, being much fatigued by traveling on foot. Understanding I was a printer, she would have had me remain in that town and follow my business, being ignorant what stock was necessary to begin with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of oxcheek with great good-will, accepting only of a pit of ale in return, and I thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going toward Philadelphia with several people in her. They took me in, and as there was no wind we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not having seen the city, some of the company were confident we must have passed it and would row no further; the others knew not were we were, so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper’s Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight or nine o’clock on the Sunday morning and landed at Market Street wharf.

[Arrival in Philadelphia]

¶1 I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working-dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey, my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little.

¶2 Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and in inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets , walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Reed, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw me and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for. a draught of the river water, and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

¶3 Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. . . .

[Arriving at Moral Perfection]

¶4 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

¶5 In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I met in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.

¶6 These names of virtues, with their precepts were:

1. Temperance
   Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
    

2. Silence
   Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
    

3. Order
   Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
    

4. Resolution
   Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
    

5. Frugality
   Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.
    

6. Industry
   Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
    

7. Sincerity.
   Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
    

8. Justice
   Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
    

9. Moderation
   Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
    

10. Cleanliness
    Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
     

11. Tranquility
    Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
     

12. Chastity
    Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
     

13. Humility
    Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
     

¶7  My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once because habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry, freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., Conceiving, then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Garden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.

¶8  I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.

¶9  I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the least offense against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go thro' a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a years. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplished the first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks' daily examination.