e,
promised to send the letters to the captain before the vessel would be
permitted to sail.

Franklin, naturally buoyant and hopeful, did not even then, consider
it possible that the Governor was intending to deceive him. Neither
was it possible to conceive of any motive which would induce Sir
William to betray him by so deceptive a game. At length a bag from the
Governor, apparently filled with letters and dispatches, was brought
on board, and again the vessel unfurled her sails. Franklin, with some
solicitude, asked for those which were directed to him. But Captain
Annis, all engrossed with the cares of embarkation, said that he was
too busy to examine the bag at that time, but that they would, at
their leisure, on the voyage select the letters.

On the 10th of November, 1724, the good ship, the London Hope, pushed
out from the Delaware upon the broad Atlantic. We know not whether
Franklin was surprised to find on board, as one of the passengers, his
poetical deistical friend James Ralph. This young man, who had
renounced Christianity, in the adoption of principles, which he
professed to believe conducive to the formation of a much higher moral
character, had deliberately abandoned his wife and child to seek
his fortune in London. He had deceived them by the most false
representation. Carefully he concealed from Franklin, his unprincipled
conduct and visionary schemes.

The voyage was long and rough, as the vessel did not reach London
until the twenty-fourth of November. On the passage he very carefully,
with the captain, examined the letter-bag. But no letter was found
addressed to him. There were several, however, addressed to other
persons, with Franklin's name upon the envelope as if they were in his
care. As one of these was addressed to the king's printer and another
to a stationer in London, the sanguine young man through all the
dreary and protracted voyage, clung to the hope that all was right.

Upon arriving in London, Franklin hastened first to the stationer's
and presented him with the letter, saying to him, "Here is a letter
from Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania." The stationer looked up with
surprise and said:

"Governor Keith! I do not know of any such person." Then breaking the
seal, and looking at the signature, he said very contemptuously,
"Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal. I will
have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him."[6]

[Footnote 6: We bo