7 Benjamin Franklin 7William Keith. At Keith’s suggestion, Franklin returned to
Boston to try to raise the necessary capital. His father
thought him too young for such a venture, so Keith offered
to foot the bill himself and arranged Franklin’s passage to
England so that he could choose his type and make con-
nections with London stationers and booksellers. Franklin
exchanged “some promises” about marriage with Deborah
Read and, with a young friend, James Ralph, as his com-
panion, sailed for London in November 1724, just over a
year after arriving in Philadelphia. Not until his ship was
well out at sea did he realize that Governor Keith had not
delivered the letters of credit and introduction he had
promised.
In London Franklin quickly found employment in his
trade and was able to lend money to Ralph, who was trying
to establish himself as a writer. The two young men enjoyed
the theatre and the other pleasures of the city, including
women. While in London, Franklin wrote A Dissertation on
Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725), a Deistical
pamphlet inspired by his having set type for William
Wollaston’s moral tract, The Religion of Nature Delineated.
Franklin argued in his essay that since human beings have
no real freedom of choice, they are not morally responsible
for their actions. This was perhaps a nice justification for
his self-indulgent behaviour in London and his ignoring of
Deborah, to whom he had written only once. He later
repudiated the pamphlet, burning all but one of the copies
still in his possession.
By 1726 Franklin was tiring of London. He considered
becoming an itinerant teacher of swimming, but, when
Thomas Denham, a Quaker merchant, offered him a
clerkship in his store in Philadelphia with a prospect of fat
commissions in the West Indian trade, he decided to
return home.