BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 27 



which he wrote and printed in it on a colonial subject, then 

 much talked of, excited so much attention among the leading 

 people of the place, that it obtained the proprietors many 

 friends in the House of Assembly, and they were, on the first 

 opportunity, appointed printers to the House. Fortunately, 

 too, certain events occurred about this time which ended in 

 the dissolution of Franklin's connection with Meredith, who 

 was an idle, drunken fellow, and had all along been a mere 

 incumbrance upon the concern. His father failing to advance 

 the capital which had been agreed upon, when payment was 

 demanded at the usual time by their paper merchant and 

 other creditors, he proposed to Franklin to relinquish the 

 partnership and leave the whole in his hands, if the latter 

 would take upon him the debts of the company, return to his 

 father what he had advanced on their commencing business, 

 pay his little personal debts, and give him thirty pounds 

 and a new saddle. By the kindness of two friends, who, 

 unknown to each other, came forward unasked to tender 

 their assistance, Franklin was enabled to accept of this 

 proposal; and thus, about the year 1729, when he was yet 

 only in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he found himself, 

 after all his disappointments and vicissitudes, with nothing, 

 indeed, to depend upon but his own skill and industry for 

 gaining a livelihood, and from extricating himself from debt, 

 but yet in one sense fairly established in life, and Avith at 

 least a prospect of well-doing before him. 



Having followed his course thus far with so minute an 

 observance of the several steps by which he arrived at the 

 point to which we have now brought him, we shall not 

 attempt to pursue the remainder of his career with the same 

 particularity. His subsequent eflorts in the pursuit oi 



