They were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good
deal of amusement, information, and instruction, besides answering,
in some considerable degree, our views of influencing the public
opinion on particular occasions, of which I shall give some instances
in course of time as they happened.
My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the
General Assembly. The choice was made that year without opposition;
but the year following, when I was again propos'd (the choice,
like that of the members, being annual), a new member made a long
speech against me, in order to favour some other candidate.
I was, however, chosen, which was the more agreeable to me, as,
besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk, the place gave
me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members,
which secur'd to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money,
and other occasional jobbs for the public, that, on the whole,
were very profitable.
I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was
a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely
to give him, in time, great influence in the House, which, indeed,
afterwards happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his
favour by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time,
took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library
a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him,
expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he
would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days.
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