own
newspaper. But Franklin, whose morality was nothing if not practical,
fought the devil with fire, and bribed the riders so judiciously that
his newspaper penetrated whithersoever they went. He says of it: "Our
first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the
Province; a better type, and better printed; but some spirited remarks
of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and
the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the
paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks
brought them all to be our subscribers." Later his articles in favor of
the issue of a sum of paper currency were so largely instrumental in
carrying that measure that the profitable job of printing the money
became his reward. Thus advancing in prestige and prosperity, he was
able to discharge by installments his indebtedness. "In order to
secure," he says, "my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care
to be not only in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all
appearances to the contrary." A characteristic remark. With Franklin
every virtue had its market value, and to neglect to get that value out
of it was the part of folly.

About this time the wife of a glazier, who occupied part of Franklin's
house, began match-making in behalf of a "very deserving" girl; and
Franklin, nothing loath, responded with "serious courtship." He
intimated his willingness to accept the maiden's hand, provided that its
fellow hand held a dowry, and he named an hundred pounds sterling as his
lowest figure. The parents, on the other part, said that they had not
so much ready money. Franklin civilly suggested that they could get it
by mortgaging their house; they firmly declined. The negotiation
thereupon was abandoned. "This affair," Franklin continues, "having
turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures of
acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the business of a
printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money
with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think
agreeable." Finding such difficulties in the way of a financial
alliance, Franklin appears to have bethought him of affection as a
substitute for dollars; so he blew into the ashes of an old flame, and
aroused some heat. Before going to England he had engaged himself to
Miss Deborah Read; but in London he had pretty well forgotten her, an