William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid,
sensible man.
Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb I have characteriz'd before.
Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively,
and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends.
And William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, about my age, who had
the coolest, dearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals
of almost any man I ever met with. He became afterwards a merchant
of great note, and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship
continued without interruption to his death, upward of forty years;
and the club continued almost as long, and was the best school
of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province;
for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion,
put us upon reading with attention upon the several subjects,
that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired
better habits of conversation, every thing being studied in our
rules which might prevent our disgusting each other. From hence
the long continuance of the club, which I shall have frequent
occasion to speak further of hereafter.
But my giving this account of it here is to show something of the interest
I had, every one of these exerting themselves in recommending business
to us. Breintnal particularly procur'd us from the Quakers the printing
forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be done by Keimer;
and upon this we work'd exceedingly hard, for the price was low.
It was a folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long primer notes.
I compos'd of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press;
it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had
finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the little
jobbs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back.
But so determin'd I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio,
that one night, when, having impos'd my forms, I thought my day's
work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages
reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and compos'd it over again
before I went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbors,
began to give us character and credit; particularly, I was told,
that mention being made of the new printing-office at the merchants'
Every-night club, the general opinion was that it must fail,
there being already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford;
but Dr. Baird (whom you and I saw many years after at his native place,
St. Andrew's in Scotland) gave a contrary opinion: "For the industry
of that Franklin," says he, "is superior to any thing I ever saw
of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club,
and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."
This struck the rest, and we soon after had offers from one of them
to supply us with stationery; but as yet we did not chuse to engage in
shop business.