The young 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