g apprentice felt that his brother was unduly severe and, after
serving for about two years, made up his mind to run away. Secretly he
took passage on a sloop and in three days reached New York, there to
find that the one printer in the town, William Bradford, could give him
no work. Benjamin then set out for Philadelphia. By boat to Perth Amboy,
on foot to Burlington, and then by boat to Philadelphia was the course
of his journey, which consumed five days. On a Sunday morning in
October, 1723, the tired, hungry boy landed upon the Market Street
wharf, and at once set out to find food and explore America's
metropolis.

Benjamin found employment with Samuel Keimer, an eccentric printer just
beginning business, and lodgings at the house of Read, whose daughter
Deborah was later to become his wife. The intelligent young printer soon
attracted the notice of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, who
promised to set him up in business. First, however, he must go to London
to buy a printing outfit. On the Governor's promise to send a letter
of credit for his needs in London, Franklin set sail; but the Governor
broke his word, and Franklin was obliged to remain in London nearly two
years working at his trade. It was in London that he printed the
first of his many pamphlets, an attack on revealed religion, called "A
Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." Though he met
some interesting persons, from each of whom he extracted, according to
his custom, every particle of information possible, no future opened for
him in London, and he accepted an offer to return to Philadelphia with
employment as a clerk. But early in 1727 his employer died, and Benjamin
went back to his trade, as printers always do. He found work again in
Keimer's printing office. Here his mechanical ingenuity and general
ability presently began to appear; he invented a method of casting type,
made ink, and became, in fact, the real manager of the business.

The ability to make friends was one of Franklin's traits, and the number
of his acquaintances grew rapidly, both in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
"I grew convinced," he naively says, "that TRUTH, SINCERITY, and
INTEGRITY in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance
to the felicity of life." Not long after his return from England he
founded in Philadelphia the Junto, a society which at its regular
meetings argued various questions and criticized the writings of the
mem