We found a house to let near the market, and took
it. To lessen the rent, which was then but twenty-four pounds a year,
though I have since known it to let for seventy, we took in Thomas
Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, who were to pay a considerable part
of it to us, and we to board with them. We had scarce opened our letters
and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of
mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street,
inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of
particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five
shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me
more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and the gratitude
I felt towards House has made me often more ready, than perhaps I
otherwise should have been, to assist young beginners.
There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one
there lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with
a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel
Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped me one day at my
door, and asked me if I was the young man, who had lately opened a new
printing-house? Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry
for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would
be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half
bankrupts, or near being so; all the appearances of the contrary, such
as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge
fallacious; for they were in fact among the things that would ruin us.
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