The Autobiography of Ben Franklin: Part 4
Bonus:
Summary: Ben Franklin goes back home, then returns to Philly, and prepares to set up a print shop.
Commentary: You can start to see some of the famous Ben Franklin maxims starting to take shape here. Don't get tricked by pretty girls, don't lend money to drunks, etc. I never really thought about the real life experiences that led to them.
I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I considered, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
The first appearance of "not quite following his own advice" Franklin.
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