our houſe, and offered to ſupply us with articles of ſtationary; but we wiſhed not as yet to embarraſs ourſelves with keeping a ſhop. It is not for the ſake of applauſe that I enter ſo freely into the particulars of my induſtry, but ſuch of my deſcendants as ſhall read theſe memoirs may know the uſe of this virtue, by ſeeing in the recital of my life the effects it operated in my favour.
George Webb, having found a friend who lent him the neceſſary ſum to buy out his time of Keimer, came one day to offer himſelf to us as a journeyman. We could not employ him immediately; but I fooliſhly told him, under the roſe, that I intended ſhortly to publiſh a new periodical paper, and that we ſhould then have work for him. My hopes of ſucceſs, which I imparted to him, were founded on the circumſtance, that the only paper we had in Philadelphia at that time, and which Bradford printed, was a paltry thing, miſerably conducted, in no reſpect amuſing, and which yet was profitable. I conſequently ſuppoſed that a good work of this kind could not fail of ſucceſs. Webb betrayed my ſecret to Keimer, who, to prevent me, immediately publiſhed the proſpectus of a paper that he intended to inſtitute himſelf, and in which Webb was to, be engaged.
I was exaſperated at this proceeding, and, with a view to counteract them, not being able at preſent to inſtitute my own paper, I wrote ſome humorous pieces in Bradford's, under the title of the Bufy Body[1]; and which was continued for ſeveral months by Breintnal. I hereby fixed the attention of the public upon Bradford's paper; and the proſpectus of Keimer, which we turned
- ↑ A manuſcript note in the file of the American Mercury, preſerved in the Philadelphia library, ſays, that Franklin wrote the firſt five numbers, and part of the eight.
