1791] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. -u 



OJ 



day, to contend with kings and potentates for the rights of his country; 

 to extort from them an acknowledgment of its sovereignty, and to sub- 

 scribe with his name the sacred instruments* which were to give it a pre- 

 eminent rank among the nations of the earth, and to assure its liberty 

 and independence to the latest ages ! 



He was content in his humble, but honorable station of an useful pri- 

 vate citizen, to cherish in his own bosom, and in distant view, the idea 

 of American greatness ; and he cherished those also in whom he dis- 

 covered ideas congenial to his own ! . . . 



As the respect due to the public bodies, which compose such an illus- 

 trious part of this assembly, forbids me to trespass too long upon their 

 precious time, I must forbear entering upon a full detail of the life and 

 actions of this great man in those several relations, and shall, therefore, 

 touch but briefly on such parts of his character as are either generally 

 known in America, or have been already detailed by his numerous 

 panegyrists, both at home and abroad. . . . 



Descended from parents who first settled in America above an hun- 

 dred years agojf he was born in Boston, in January, 1706. The 

 account of his education, which was such only as the common schools 

 of tliat day afforded, the various incidents of his younger years, and the 

 different occupations and professions for which his parents seemed to 

 have intended him, before he was apprenticed to his brother, in the 

 printing business, at the age of twelve years, although recorded by him- 

 self, and full of instruction, I shall leave wholly to his biographers, till 

 his arrival at Philadelphia, about the eighteenth year of his age, to which 

 city he came from the city of New York, partly by water, and partly by 

 land on foot, his stock of clothes and cash at a very low ebb, to seek for 

 employment as a journeyman printer. But by industry and the applica- 

 tion of his great natural talents to business, he soon was enabled to pro- 

 cure a press, and to stand upon his own footing. 



This account of his low beginnings, it is hoped, will not scandalize 

 any of his respectable fraternity. No, gentlemen •,% but you will exult 

 in it when you consider to what eminence he raised himself, and raised 

 his country, by the right use of the press. When you consider that the 

 press was the great instrument which he employed to draw the attention 

 of Pennsylvania to habits of virtue and industry ; to the institution of 



*The Declaration of American Independence, by the Congress of the United States, 

 the treaties of amity and commerce, and of alliance with France ; the definitive treaty 

 of peace with Great Britain, acknowledging the independence of America, etc. 



fHis father, Josiah Franklin, settled in New England in 1682, and his mother, 

 Abiah Folger, was the daughter of Peter P^olger of Nantucket, one of the first settlers 

 of that country. 



\ This part was more immediately addressed to the printers of Philadelphia, who 

 attended as a body, at the delivery of this oration. 



