On a Sunday morning in October, 1723, the tired, hungry boy landed upon the Market Street wharf, and at once set out to find food and explore America's metropolis.
Benjamin found employment with Samuel Keimer, an eccentric printer just beginning business, and lodgings at the house of Read, whose daughter Deborah was later to become his wife.

The intelligent young printer soon attracted the notice of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, who promised to set him up in business.

First, however, he must go to London to buy a printing outfit.

On the Governor's promise to send a letter of credit for his needs in London, Franklin set sail; but the Governor broke his word, and Franklin was obliged to remain in London nearly two years working at his trade.

It was in London that he printed the first of his many pamphlets, an attack on revealed religion, called "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." Though he met some interesting persons, from each of whom he extracted, according to his custom, every particle of information possible, no future opened for him in London, and he accepted an offer to return to Philadelphia with employment as a clerk.