He had altercations with his fellow journeymen on the subject of temperance; they were beer-drinking sots, and many of them he reformed altogether; he was strong and athletic, while they could carry less and did less work. His skill in swimming attracted observation, and he gave exhibitions of the art at Chelsea and Blackfriars, which excited so much attention that he meditated opening a swimming school, and wrote two essays upon swimming; but in the mean time he entered into engagements with a good man, Mr. Denham, to return to Philadelphia and be his clerk in a dry-goods shop. They sailed from Gravesend July 23, 1726, and landed at Philadelphia Oct. 11. He kept an interesting journal of the voyage. He had been 18 months in London, had profited by advantages of acquaintanceship and books, but was unimproved in his fortunes. Sir William Keith had been superseded as governor; Franklin met him in the street, but seeing that he looked ashamed, passed on without remark. To Miss Read he had written but once during his absence, and that was to say that she was not likely to see him soon. She had been persuaded to marry another, but her husband had absconded in debt, and under suspicion of bigamy. Franklin attributed her misfortunes to his own conduct, and resolved to repair his error.

It was doubtful whether a marriage with her would be valid; it had not been clearly ascertained that hispredecessor," as he styles him, had had a previous wife, and Franklin, whom Mr. Tuckerman calls the incarnated common sense of his time, did not forget that he might be called upon to pay his predecessor's debts. We ventured, however," he adds, over all the difficulties, and I took her to wife on the 1st of September, 1730." She proved a good and faithful helpmate. Some time before his marriage he suffered a serious illness; a similar illness carried off his employer; and Franklin, forming a connection shortly afterward with a person who had money, established the "Pennsylvania Gazette," which was managed with great ability. He had already written the "Busybody," a series of amusing papers, for another journal, and was the leading member of a club called the Junto, in which questions of morals, politics, and philosophy were discussed. He very soon became a man of mark; his great intelligence and industry, his ingenuity in devising better systems of economy, education, and improvement, now establishing a subscription and circulating library, now publishing a popular pamphlet on the necessity of paper currency (having previously invented a copperplate press, and engraved and printed the New Jersey paper money), and presently also his valuable municipal services, rapidly won for him the respect and admiration of the colonies.

In 1732 he first published his almanac, under the name of Richard Saunders. It took the name of "Poor Richard's Almanac," and was continued profitably about 25 years. The wise saws, the aphorisms, and encouragement to virtue and prosperity through the excellent proverbial sentences with which he filled the corners and spaces, became very popular, and they were at length spread over England and France in reprint and translations. In 1733, at the age of 27, he began to study the French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin languages; and after ten years' absence from Boston, he revisited the scenes of his childhood, healing family differences, and consoling the deathbed of his brother with promises of provision for his son. Returning to Philadelphia, he was elected clerk to the assembly. Soon afterward he was appointed postmaster, and turning his mind upon municipal affairs, wrote papers and effected improvements in the. city watch, and established a fire company, He became the founder of the university of Pennsylvania and of the American philosophical society (1744), took an active part in providing for defence against a threatened Spanish and French invasion, and invented the economical stove which bears his name; he declined to profit pecuniarily from this invention, although invited to do so by the offer of a patent.

While in Boston in 1746, he witnessed some imperfect experiments in electricity; and having now means sufficient to withdraw from private business, he purchased philosophical apparatus and began his investigations (for an account of which see Electro-Magnetism, and Lightning). The invention of the lightning rod was a practical application of discoveries the most brilliant which had yet been made in natural philosophy. But he was not allowed to proceed immediately with his scientific pursuits. He was elected to the assembly in 1750; was appointed commissioner for making an Indian treaty, and in 1753 deputy postmaster general for America; and was presented with the degree of master of arts by Harvard and Yale colleges. In 1754, the French war impending, he was named a deputy to the general congress at Albany. He proposed a plan of union for the colonies, which was unanimously adopted by the convention, but rejected by the board of trade in England as too democratic. He was ever afterward actively and zealously engaged in national affairs.

We find him in Boston in 1754; and the French war having begun, he assisted Mr. Quincy in procuring a loan in Philadelphia for New England. He visited Braddock in Maryland, and modestly remonstrated against that general's expedition which resulted so disastrously. As postmaster general he was called upon to facilitate the march of the army, and labored faithfully, and even to his own pecuniary disadvantage, in the service. After the defeat of Braddock, he was the means of establishing a volunteer militia, and took the field as military commander. After a laborious campaign it was proposed to commission Franklin as general in command of a distant expedition; but he distrusted his military capacities and waived the proposal. He resumed his electrical researches, and wrote accounts of experiments, which were read before the royal society of London, and procured for him the honor of membership and the Copley gold medal, and were published in England and France. Sir Humphry Davy says of these papers that their style and manner are almost as admirable as the doctrine they advance. Franklin, he said subsequently, seeks rather to make philosophy a useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces.