Benjamin Franklin as a man of letters

"THE story of the life of Benjamin Franklin begins at a time when Queen Anne still ruled the colonies; when the colonies were but ten in number, and when the population of the ten did not sum up to four hundred thousand souls; at a time when witches were plentiful in New England; when foxes troubled the farmers of Lynn; when wolves sad panthers abounded in Connecticut; when pirates infested the Atlantic coast; when there was no such thing as a stage-coach in the land; when there were but three colleges and one newspaper in the whole of British North America; when no printing-press existed south of Philadelphia; when New York was still defended by a high stockade; and when Ann Pollard, the first white woman that ever set foot on the soil of Boston, was still enjoying a hole old age."