My belief of this induces me to hope,
though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be
exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling
me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others
have done: the complexion of my future fortune being known
to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions.
The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity
in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands,
furnished me with several particulars relating to our ancestors.
From these notes I learned that the family had lived in the
same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for three hundred years,
and how much longer he knew not (perhaps from the time when the name
of Franklin, that before was the name of an order of people,
was assumed by them as a surname when others took surnames
all over the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty acres,
aided by the smith's business, which had continued in the family
till his time, the eldest son being always bred to that business;
a custom which he and my father followed as to their eldest sons.
When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account
of their births, marriages and burials from the year 1555 only,
there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding.
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