nce that I was
destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my
dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that
if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and
get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He
therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners,
bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might
observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other
on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen
handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much
by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman
could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my
experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and
warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and
my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in
London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be
with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me
displeasing my father, I was taken home again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's
Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40
or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in
polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted
that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper
books had not fallen in my way since it was now resolved I should not
be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there was in which I read abundantly,
and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a
book of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr.
Mather's, called Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of
thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events
of my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a
printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In
1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to
set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my
father, but still