Excerpt from The Life of Dr. Benj; Franklin I have amused myself with collecting some little anecdotes of my family. You may re member the inquiries I made, when you were with me in England, among such of my rela tions as were then living; and the journey I undertook for that purpose. To be ao quainted with the particulars of my parent age and life, many of which are unknown to you, I flatter myself will afford the same pleasure to you as to me. I shall relate them: upon paper: it will be an agreeable employ ment of a week's uninterrupted leisure, which I promise myself during my present retire ment in the country. There are also other motives which induce 'me to the undertaking. From the bosom of poverty and obscurity, in which I drew my first breath, and spent my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of Opulence and to some degree of celebrity in the world. A constant good fortune has attended the through every period of life to my present advanced age; and my descendn ants may be desirous of learning what were the means of which I made use, and which, thanks to the assisting hand of Providence, have proved so eminently successful. They may, also, should they ever be placed in a similar situation, derive some advantage from my narrative. f' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.