and of which the object was to prove, from the attributes of God, his goodness, wisdom and power, that "there could be no such thing as evil in the world; that vice and virtue did not in reality exist, and were nothing more than vain distinctions. I no longer regarded it as so blameless a work as I had formerly imagined; and I suspected that some error must imperceptibly have glided into my argument, by all the inferences I had drawn from it had been affected, as it frequently happens in metaphysical reasonings. In a word, I was at last convinced that truth, probity and sincerity, in transactions between man and man were of the utmost importance to the happiness of life; and I resolved from that moment, and wrote the resolution in my journal, to practice them as long as I lived.

Revelation indeed, as such, had no influence on my mind; but I was of opinion that, though certain actions could not be bad merely because revelation prchibited them, or good because it enjoined them, yet it was probable that those actions were prohibited because they were bad for us, or enjoined because advantageous in their nature, all things considered. This persuasion, divine providence, or some guardian angel, and perhaps a concurrence of favourable circumstances co-operating, preserved me from all immorality, or gross and voluntary injustice, to which my want of religion was calculated to expose me, in the dangerous period of youth, and in the hazardous situations in which I sometimes found myself, among strangers, and at a distance from the eye and admonitions of my father. I may say voluntary, because the errors into which I had fallen, had been in a manner the forced result either of my own inexperience, or the dishonesty of others. Thus, before I entered on my new career, I had imbibed solid principles, and a character of probity. I knew their value; and I made a solemn engagement with myself never to deptart from them. I had not long returned from Burlington before our

printing materials arrived from London.

I settled

my accounts with Keimer, and quitted him, with his own consent, before he had any knowledge of our plan. We found a house to let near the market. We took it; and to render the rent less burthensome (it was then twenty-four pounds a year, but I have since known it let for seventy) we admitted Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, with his family, who eased us of a considerable part of it; and with him we agreed to board.

We had no sooner unpacked our letter, and put our press in order, than a person of my acquaintance, George House, brought us a countryman, whom he had met in the streets enquiring for a printer. Our money was almost exhausted by the number of things we had been obliged to procure. The five shillings we received from this countryman, the first fruit of our earnings, coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any sum I have since gained; and the recollection of the gratitude I felt on this occasion to George House, has rendered me often more disposed, than perhaps I should otherwise have been, to encou rage young beginners in trade.

There are in every country morose beings, who are always prognosticating ruin. There was one of this stamp in Philadelphia. He was a man of fortune, declined in years, had an air of wisdom, and a very grave manner of speaking. His name was Samuel Mickle. I knew him not; but he stopped one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing house. Upon my answering in the affirmative, he said that he was very sorry for me, as it was an expensive undertaking; and the money that had been laid out upon it would be lost, Philadelphia being a place falling into decay; its inhabitants having all, or nearly all of them, been obliged to call together their creditors. That he knew from undoubted fact, the circumstances which might lead us to suppose the contrary, such as new buildings, and the advanced

price of rent, to be deceitful appearances, which in re ality contributed to hasten the general ruin; and he gave me so long a detail of misfortunes, actually existing, or which were soon to take place, that he left me almost in a state of despair. Had I known this man before I entered into trade, I should doubtless never have ventured. He however continued to live in this place of decay, and to declaim in the same style, refusing for many years to buy a house, because all was going to wreck! and in the end I had the satisfaction to see him pay five times as much for one as it would cost him had he purchased it when he first began his lamentations.

I ought to have related that, during the autumn of the preceding year, I had united the majority of wellinformed persons of my acquaintance into a club, which we called by the name of the Junto, and the object of which was to improve our understandings. We met every Friday evening. The regulations I drew up, obliged every member to propose in his turn, one or more questions upon some point of morality, politics, or philosophy, which were to be discussed by the society; and to read, once in three months, an essay of his own composition, on whatever subject he pleas ed. Our debates were under the direction of a president, and were to be dictated only by a sincere desire of truth; the pleasure of disputing, and the vanity of triumph having no share in the business; and in order to prevent undue warmth, every expression which implied obstinate adherence to an opinion, and all di pect contradiction, were prohibited, under small pecuniary penalties.

The first members of our club were Joseph Breint nal, whose occupation was that of a scrivener. He was a middle-aged man, of a good natural disposition, strongly attached to his friends, a great lover of poetry, reading every thing that came in his way, and writing

tolerably well, ingenious in many little trifles, and of an agreeable conversation.

Thomas Godfrey, a skilful, though self-taught mathematician, and who was afterwards the inventor of what now goes by the name of Hadley's dial; but he had little knowledge out of his own line, and was insupportable in company, always requiring, like the majority of mathematicians that have fallen in my way, an unusual precision in every thing that is said, continually contradicting, or making trifling distinctions; a sure way of defeating all the ends of conversation. He very soon left us.

Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, and who became afterwards surveyor general. He was fond of books and wrote verses

William Parsons, brought up to the trade of a shoemaker, but who having a taste for reading, had acquired a profound knowledge of mathematics. He first studied them with a view to astrology, and was afterwards the first to laugh at his folly. He also be

came surveyor-general.

William Mawgridge, a joiner, and very excellent mechanic; and in other respects a man of solid understanding.

Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, of whom I have already spoken.

Robert Grace, a young man of fortune; generous, animated and witty; fond of epigrams, but more fond of his friends.

And lastly, William Coleman, at that time a merchant's clerk, and nearly of my own age. He had a cooler and clearer head, a better heart, and more scrupulous morals, than almost any other person I have ever met with. He became a very respectable merchant, and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship subsisted, without interruption, for more than forty years, till the period of his death; and the club continued to exist almost as long.

This was the best school of politics and philosophy that then existed in the province; for our questions, which we read a week previous to their discussion, induced us to peruse attentively such books as were written upon the subjects proposed, that we might be able to speak upon them more pertinently. We thus acquired the habit of conversing more agreeably; every object being discussed conformably to our regulations, and in a manner to prevent mutual disgust. To this circumstance may be attributed the long duration of the club; which I shall have frequent occasion to mention as I proceed.

us.

I have introduced it here, as being one of the means on which I had to count for success in my business; every member exerting himself to procure work for Breintnal, among others, obtained for us, on the part of the Quakers, the printing of forty sheets of their history; of which the rest was to be done by Keimer. Our execution of this work was by no means masterly; as the price was very low. It was in folio, upon pro patria paper, and in the pica letter, with hea vy notes in the smallest type. I composed a sheet a day, and Meredith put it to press. It was frequently eleven o'clock at night sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's task; for the little things which our friends occasionally sent us, kept us back in this work: but I was so determined to compose a sheet a day, that one evening when my form was imposed, and my day's work, as I thought, at an end, an accident having broken this form, and deranged two complete folio pages, I immediately distributed, and composed them anew before. I went to bed.

This unwearied industry, which was perceived by our neighbours, began to acquire us reputation and credit. I learned, among other things, that our new printing-house being the subject of conversation at a lub of merchants who met every evening, it was the