Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said to my partner, "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business." "No," said he, "my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and follow my old employment. You may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you; return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced; pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in your hands." I agreed to this proposal: it was drawn up in writing, sign'd, and seal'd immediately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon after to Carolina, from whence he sent me next year two long letters, containing the best account that had been given of that country, the climate, the soil, husbandry, etc., for in those matters he was very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the publick.
As soon as he was gone, I recurr'd to my two friends; and because I would not give an unkind preference to either, I took half of what each had offered and I wanted of one, and half of the other; paid off the company's debts, and went on with the business in my own name, advertising that the partnership was dissolved. I think this was in or about the year 1729.
[50] "Not found in the manuscript journal, which was left among Franklin's papers."—Bigelow.
[51] A crimp was the agent of a shipping company. Crimps were sometimes employed to decoy men into such service as is here mentioned.
[52] The creed of an eighteenth century theological sect which, while believing in God, refused to credit the possibility of miracles and to acknowledge the validity of revelation.
[53] A great English poet, dramatist, and critic (1631-1700). The lines are inaccurately quoted from Dryden's Œdipus, Act III, Scene I, line 293.
[54] A Spanish term meaning a combination for political intrigue; here a club or society.
[55] A sheet 8-1/2 by 13-1/2 inches, having the words pro patria in translucent letters in the body of the paper. Pica—a size of type; as, A B C D: Long Primer—a smaller size of type; as, A B C D.
[56] To arrange and lock up pages or columns of type in a rectangular iron frame, ready for printing.
[57] Reduced to complete disorder.