BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
1706-1757

TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's,<0> 1771.

<0> The country-seat of Bishop Shipley, the good bishop,
as Dr. Franklin used to style him.--B.

DEAR SON: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little
anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made
among the remains of my relations when you were with me in England,
and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be
equally agreeable to<1> you to know the circumstances of my life,
many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment
of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement,
I sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some
other inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity
in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some
degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through
life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means
I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded,
my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them
suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.

<1> After the words "agreeable to" the words "some of" were
interlined and afterward effaced.--B.