Franklin: The autobiography and other writings on politics, economics, and virtue

[I]n my first Voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our People set about catching Cod and hawl’d up a grat many. Hitherto I had stuck to my Resolution of not eating animal Food; and on this Occasion I consider’d with my Master Tryon, the taking every Fish a kind of unprovok’d Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter.– All this seem’d very reasonable.–But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, and when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between Principle and Inclination: till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do.–