pervaded the land,” says Mr. Carey, “excited the indignation of the
government, which formed a determination to put it down, if possible. A
prosecution had for a considerable time been contemplated—and, at
length, the storm which had so long threatened, burst, in consequence of
a publication which appeared on the 5th of April, 1784, in which the
Parliament in general, and more particularly the Premier, were severely
attacked.”
Accordingly, on the 7th of the same month, a motion was made in the
Irish House of Commons, for an address to the Lord Lieutenant,
requesting the apprehension of Mathew Carey. He was arrested on the
11th, and on the 19th was taken before the House of Commons, when
certain interrogatories were put to him, which he positively refused to
answer, on the ground that he was arrested by the civil power, and being
under prosecution for the supposed libel of the Premier, he was not
amenable to another tribunal. He preferred charges against the
Sergeant-at-Arms in whose custody he was. An exciting debate arose; the
Sergeant-at-Arms was justified by a large majority, and Mr. Carey was
committed to Newgate jail, Dublin, where he remained until the 14th of
May, when Parliament having adjourned, he was liberated by the Lord
Mayor. “During my stay there,” says Mr. Carey, “I had lived
joyously—companies of gentlemen occasionally dining with me on the
choicest luxuries the markets afforded.”
Although thus freed from the clutches of Parliament, the criminal
prosecution for libel of the Premier still stood suspended over his
head. In the then inflamed state of the public mind it would have been
impossible to procure a grand jury to find a true bill against him; but
the attorney-general filed a bill _ex-officio_ which dispensed with the
interposition of the grand jury. Mr. Carey’s means were, in a great
measure, exhausted; and, dreading the consequences of the prosecution
and a heavy fine and imprisonment, his friends thought it best for him
to leave his native country; and, “accordingly, on the 7th of September,
1784,” he says, “when I had not reached my 25th year, my pen drove me a
second time into exile.” He embarked on board the _America_, Captain
Keiler, and landed in Philadelphia on the 1st of November. He was
induced to select Philadelphia as his new home for the reason that he
had seen notices of his examination before the Irish House of Commons in
two Philadelphia papers. There his case was therefore known, and would
probably make him friends.
He had sold out his paper to his brother for £500, to be remitted as
soon as practicable, and he landed in Philadelphia with about a dozen
guineas in his pocket, without a relation or a friend, or even an
acquaintance, except those of the _America_. A most unlooked for
circumstance soon occurred which gave a new direction to his views and
changed the course of his future life. A fellow passenger of his had
brought letters of recommendation to General Washington, and having gone
to Mount Vernon to deliver them, he there met the Marquis de Lafayette.
The conversation turning upon the affairs of Ireland, the Marquis said
he had seen in the Philadelphia papers an account of Mr. Carey’s
troubles with the Parliament, and inquired what had become of the poor
persecuted Dublin printer, when he was informed that he was then in
Philadelphia. On the arrival of the Marquis in that city, he wrote to
Mr. Carey requesting him to call upon him. Mr. Carey then told him that
upon receipt of funds from home he proposed to establish a newspaper in
Philadelphia. Of this the Marquis approved, and promised to recommend
him to his friend, Robert Morris, and others. The next morning Mr. Carey
was greatly surprised at receiving a letter from the Marquis containing
$400. “This was the more extraordinary and liberal,” says Mr. Carey, “as
not a word had passed between us on the subject of giving or receiving,
borrowing or lending money.”
Nor was there a word in the letter about the inclosure. Mr. Carey went
to the lodgings of the Marquis, but found that he had left the city. He
wrote to him at New York expressing his gratitude in the strongest of
terms, and received a kind and friendly answer. “I have more than once
assumed, and I now repeat,” says Mr. Carey, “that I doubt whether in the
whole life of this (I had almost said) unparalleled man, there is to be
found anything which, all the circumstances of the case considered, more
highly elevates his character.”
Although this sum was in every sense of the word a gift, Mr. Carey
always considered it as a loan, payable to the Marquis’ countrymen,
according to the exalted sentiment of Dr. Franklin, who, when he gave a
bill for ten pounds to an Irish clergymen in distress in Paris, told him
to “pay the sum to any Americans he might find in distress, and thus
_let good offices go round_.” Mr. Carey paid the debt in full to
Frenchmen in want, and subsequently in addition discharged it to the
Marquis; the latter only accepting it upon the urgent solicitation of
the former.
On receiving this money, Mr. Carey at once issued proposals for the
publication of the _Pennsylvania Evening Herald_, and the first number
was accordingly published January 25, 1785. He received but £50 from the
sale of the _Volunteers’ Journal_, in Dublin, his brother having been
ruined partly by the persecutions of the government, and partly by the
establishment of an opposition paper of the same name under government
patronage. The success of the _Evening Herald_ was not very great, and
the means of the publisher being small, on the 25th of March he took two
partners, and enlarged the paper. It, however, made but poor progress
until Mr. Carey, in August following, commenced the publication of the
Debates in the House of Assembly, a great novelty and innovation which
gave the _Herald_ an advantage over all its contemporaries.
Party feeling in Pennsylvania ran very high at the time, and in the
course of a political controversy, he became involved in a quarrel with
Col. Eleazer Oswald, who had been an officer of artillery during the
Revolutionary War; and this difficulty resulted in a duel which took
place in January, 1786, in New Jersey, opposite to Philadelphia, in
which Mr. Carey was wounded in the thigh, from the effects of which he
did not entirely recover for many months. He, subsequently to the duel,
greatly disgusted his second and others, by performing, as he says, “a
gratuitous act of justice, which was probably one of the best acts of my
life”—that of publishing a card retracting the charges he had made
against Colonel Oswald.
In October, 1786, in partnership with five others, he commenced the
publication of the _Columbian Magazine_, to the first number of which he
contributed four pieces, one of which, “A Philosophical Dream,” was an
anticipation of the state of the country in 1850, in which, strange as
these predictions must have seemed at the time, are now quite remarkable
in their realization. In December, 1786, owing to the difficulty of
realizing profits from so many partners and other causes, he withdrew.
In January, 1787, he issued the first number of the _American Museum_, a
magazine intended to preserve the fugitive essays that appeared in the
newspapers. This publication, sets of which, in 12 volumes, 8vo, now
exist in a number of public and private libraries, is one of great
value, and presents a graphic and truthful record of the times. It was
issued for six years, and brought to a close in December, 1792, after a
hard struggle for life.
About this time he married Miss Bridget Flahavan, the daughter of a
highly respectable citizen of Philadelphia who had been ruined by the
Revolution. Mr. Carey’s wife was an industrious, prudent, economical
woman, with, as he says, a large fund of good sense, but, equally with
himself, without means. The match was, as he acknowledges, imprudent;
but he and his wife determined to indulge in no unnecessary expense, and
they carried out this resolution faithfully, even when he was doing a
business of $40,000 to $50,000 per annum, and with the happiest results.
When he relinquished the _American Museum_, he commenced bookselling and
printing on a small scale. His store, or rather shop, was of very
moderate dimensions; but, small as it was, he had not full-bound books
enough to fill the shelves—a considerable portion of them being filled
with spelling books. He procured a credit at bank, which enabled him to
extend his business; and by care, indefatigable industry, the most rigid
punctuality and frugality, he gradually advanced in the world. For
twenty-five years, winter and summer, he was always present at the
opening of his store.
In 1793 he was a member of the Committee of Health, appointed for the
relief of the sick by yellow fever, and of the orphans made such by it.
The duties of this position were faithfully and calmly fulfilled, “and
his whole life,” says Prof. R. E. Thompson, “corresponded to the promise
of that year.” He subsequently wrote a full account of this epidemic, of
which four editions were published. Stephen Girard, who was one of the
members of this committee, as Mr. Carey says, “to the inexpressible
delight” of the members, volunteered his services, and became
superintendent of the yellow fever hospital on Bush Hill.
In 1792, or ’93, feeling for the sufferings and wretchedness of the
numerous Irish immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia, he called a
meeting, at the Coffee House, of a number of the most influential and
prominent Irishmen, and submitted to the meeting a constitution, which
he had prepared, and which was adopted, and thus was formed “The
Hibernian Society for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland.” This
society exists at the present day in a highly flourishing condition. In
1796 he zealously engaged with a few other citizens in the formation of
a Sunday-school Society, of which Bishop White became president.
Between 1796 and ’98 he became involved in a very acrimonious
controversy with William Cobbett, which was not of his seeking, but
which he conducted with unflinching courage and ability. In addition to
a considerable correspondence between them, the war became one of
pamphlets and newspapers—Cobbett using his _Porcupine Gazette_. Mr.
Carey issued a pamphlet entitled _A Plum Pudding for Peter Porcupine_,
in which he says he “handled him with great severity.” He next published
_The Porcupiniad, a Hudibrastic Poem_, in which he turned some of
Cobbett’s own paragraphs into Hudibrastic verse, and “it is wonderful,”
he says, “how smoothly they ran, in many instances, with the alteration
of a single word or two.” Cobbett made no reply, and never after had Mr.
Carey’s name in his paper but once or twice incidentally. This ended the
controversy, and subsequently they became very good friends.
His publishing business was pushed with wonderful energy, and for those
days on a grand scale. He has stated that for many years he was involved
in such financial difficulties and embarrassments that he was “oppressed
and brought to the verge of bankruptcy,” which “nothing but the most
untiring efforts and indefatigable industry and energy could have
enabled me to wade through.” These difficulties were brought about, he
says, by his own folly in over-trading. A few figures in regard to his
publications will give an idea how these difficulties arose. For
instance, he printed 2,500 copies of _Guthrie’s Geography_, 4to, with a
folio atlas of 40 or 50 maps, price, $12; 3,000 _Goldsmith’s Animated
Nature_, 4 volumes, 8vo, illustrated with a large number of plates,
price $10. In 1801 he published 3,000 copies of a 4to edition of the
Bible, with additional references, for which he paid an editor $1,000.
This book was prepared by the collation of eighteen different editions
of the Bible, in which the most extraordinary number of discrepancies
were detected. Soon after the publication of this edition, the success
of which was very great, he embarked in the preparation of a standing
edition of the 4to Bible. Stereotyping had not been invented, and for
this volume he purchased the entire type which was kept permanently
standing. About this time he purchased, for $7,000, a school Bible, and
also a large house in Market Street, in which he lived for many years.
In 1802 he was elected by the Senate of Pennsylvania a director in the
Bank of Pennsylvania, which added greatly to his financial resources.
In 1801, induced by the advantages to literature which had resulted from
the fairs of Frankfort and Leipsic, he formed the project of
establishing a literary fair in this country, to meet alternately at New
York and Philadelphia. He accordingly issued a circular dated December,
1801, inviting all publishers and booksellers to meet in New York on the
1st of June, 1802, for the purpose of buying, selling and exchanging
their publications. He wrote out a constitution, which was adopted, and
a society formed with Hugh Gaine, the oldest bookseller in the United
States, as president. The plan worked well for a year or two, but it was
found that country booksellers published inferior editions of popular
works, with which, by means of exchanges, they flooded the country. It
was therefore abandoned.
In 1806, being then a member of the Select Council of the City of
Philadelphia, he united with Stephen Girard and others to relieve real
estate of a portion of its taxes, by transferring it to personal
property, when he published a pamphlet on examination of the existing
system of taxation in that city, but with no results. In 1810, when the
question of the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States,
which was to expire on the following March, came up, he took an active
and earnest part in its favor, neglecting his business for three months,
and publishing a series of essays on the subject. Nearly all the
Democrats of the city were opposed to this, and he made himself hosts of
enemies by his course.
The publication of _The Olive Branch_, which was made at a critical
period in the history of the country, proved to be one of the most
successful books up to that time ever issued from the American press,
and he regarded its preparation as one of the most important events in
his life. The War of 1812–’15, between the United States and Great
Britain, had developed such an acrimonious state of feeling between
parties in the country, as to appear to forebode civil war. In
September, 1814, Mr. Carey, in a “moment of ardent zeal and enthusiasm,
was seized with a desire to make an effort by a candid publication of
the numerous errors and follies on both sides to allay the public
effervescence, and calm the embittered feelings of the parties.”
Hence, he began the preparation of _The Olive Branch_, September 18, and
the book was through the press November 6th, and was published on the
8th. It was a volume of 252 pages, 12mo. The edition of 500 copies was
sold within a few weeks, and it was revised and enlarged from time to
time, and in three and a half years ten editions were sold, amounting to
10,000 copies. “A greater sale probably,” as he has said, “than any book
ever had in this country, except some religious ones,” up to that time.
He gave permission to several parties to print the book, without payment
of copyright, and editions were printed at Boston, Mass., Middlebury,
Vt., and Winchester, Va.
In 1818 he set laboriously and seriously to work to prepare a
vindication of Ireland. Accordingly, in the following year, he published
_Vindiciæ Hibernicæ; or, Ireland Vindicated_, of which a second edition
was published in 1823. This is a large 8vo volume involving great
research.
Early in 1819, struck with the prevailing condition of the United
States, he commenced writing on political economy, investigating the
causes, and pointing out the necessity for protecting our industries
against foreign competition. Few men ever enlisted in any public cause
with more enthusiasm, few ever worked with more energy and industry in
such a cause. He was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Society for
the Promotion of National Industry; he attended conventions in various
parts of the country, and he made more extensive contributions to the
literature of the subject than any other man had then done on this
continent.
Some idea may be formed of the extent of this work when it is stated
that between 1819 and 1833 his books and pamphlets on this question
reached an aggregate of 2,322 pages. To no other man, not in public
life, was the first protective tariff of 1824, as well as that more
protective one of 1828, due. These were results which would have exerted
a permanent influence on the country but for the nullification movement
of South Carolina and Georgia.
This latter movement produced Clay’s Compromise Tariff Act of 1833,
which was only abandoned in 1842 in the midst of a bankruptcy so
widespread and universal that it involved not merely individuals and
banks and other corporations, but state governments, and even the
government of the United States itself. Mr. Carey was much discouraged
by the illiberal conduct of manufacturers and others who had much at
stake in the cause, and he ever after believed that to this illiberality
and supineness was due the triumph of nullification, for it did triumph
in the enactment of the Compromise Tariff, Act of 1833.
However, amid these discouragements, he derived some consolation from a
recognition of his services by a portion of his fellow countrymen. In
1821 he was presented by citizens of Wilmington, Del., with a handsome
piece of silver plate bearing the following inscription: “A tribute of
gratitude to Mathew Carey, Esq., in approbation of his writings on
political economy; presented by some friends of National Industry, in
Wilmington, Del., and its vicinity, April, 1821.” In 1834 he was
presented with a service of plate by citizens of Philadelphia and
others, “as a testimonial of their respect for his public conduct and
their esteem for his private virtues”; who deemed his “whole career in
life an encouraging example, by the imitation of which, without the aid
of official station or political power, every private citizen may become
a public benefactor.” Sometime previously he received two silver
pitchers from other citizens of Philadelphia.
In 1824 he was instrumental in reviving and carrying through the project
for the construction of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which had
lain dormant from 1805. This undertaking involved weeks of labor, and of
personal solicitations for subscriptions.
In 1825 he retired permanently from business on a well-earned
competency, and the remaining years of his life were devoted to public
and philanthropic work, with an energy that never tired. Among his
correspondents were Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, Hamilton, John
Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Henry Clay, and hosts of others in public and
private life, during a period covering more than half a century. His
writings, a tolerably complete set of which is in possession of The
Library Company of Philadelphia, make nine large 8vo volumes.
He died in the city of Philadelphia on the 16th of September, 1839, in
the eightieth year of his age, universally respected, and his death was
mourned as a public loss. His remains were followed to the grave by
thousands of his fellow citizens. A venerable and distinguished
journalist, who had known him long and well, announced his death in the
following terms: “The friend of mankind is no more. Long and sincerely
will he be lamented, not in high places only, amid the pomp and
circumstance of grief, but in the solitary corner of the poor and the
friendless. Upon his grave honest tears will be shed. The orphan and the
widow will wander there, and, in the heart’s deepest accents, implore
the blessings of Heaven upon his departed soul.”
He was buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, Fourth Street, above Spruce,
Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Carey had nine children, three of whom died
young. The remaining six were:
Maria, who died unmarried.
Henry Charles, who married, but died without issue.
Eliza Catharine, who married Thomas James Baird, a graduate of West
Point, who was lieutenant of artillery in the War of 1812.
Susan M., who died unmarried.
Frances A., who married Isaac Lea.
Edward L., who died unmarried.
Mathew Carey’s will mentions his sister, Margaret Burke, and his
deceased brother, John Carey. In Father Finotti’s work on Catholic
American Bibliography is given a list, somewhat incomplete, of Mathew
Carey’s works.
REVIEW OF THE YEAR.
LEADING EVENTS IN THE CAREER OF THE SOCIETY, FOR 1905, OR OF SPECIAL
INTEREST TO THE MEMBERS.
Jan. 2. Among the mayors inaugurated in Massachusetts cities today
were the following: Hon. Augustine J. Daly, Cambridge;
Hon. James B. Casey, Lowell; Hon. Cornelius B. Lynch,
Lawrence; Hon. John T. Coughlin, Fall River; Hon. M. F.
Dwyer, Medford; Hon. Lawrence P. Reade, Woburn; and Hon.
T. M. Connor, Northampton.
Jan. 2. The following mayors, among others, were inaugurated in
Rhode Island cities today: Hon. Patrick J. Boyle, Newport;
Hon. James H. Higgins, Pawtucket; and Hon. Thomas H.
McNally, Central Falls.
Jan. 12. A meeting of the Council of the Society is held at the Hotel
Manhattan, 42d Street and Madison Avenue, New York City.
Jan. 12. Thomas D. O’Brien, St. Paul, Minn., is today appointed
insurance commissioner of Minnesota by Governor Johnson.
Jan. 16. Hon. Thomas H. Carter, a member of the Society, is today
again elected United States senator from Montana.
Jan. 24. The annual meeting and dinner of the Society takes place at
the Hotel Manhattan, New York City.
Jan. 24. Died today in Dorchester (Boston), Mass., Mary, the widow
of Thomas O’Neil, a veteran of the Mexican and Civil
wars. In view of the death of his widow, a few words
regarding O’Neil will be of interest. He served bravely
in the Mexican War, during which he distinguished
himself by saving Franklin Pierce, afterwards president
of the United States. Pierce was badly wounded, when
O’Neil rescued him and taking him on his own horse,
dashed away with him to a place of safety. In the home
of Mrs. McFarlane, her daughter, where Mrs. O’Neil spent
the latter part of her life, are two interesting
testimonials of the bravery of O’Neil during the war.
One is a Bible, the gift of President Pierce, with this
inscription: “For the children of Sergeant Thomas
O’Neil, who was in my military family during the war
with Mexico, and by his courage and fidelity earning my
confidence and affectionate regard. Franklin Pierce.
Washington, D. C., May 22, 1853.” The other is a
beautiful silk Mexican flag, finely worked and colored,
which O’Neil captured. It was made in a convent. It now
hangs over his portrait in the parlor. O’Neil promptly
responded to Lincoln’s call for volunteers when the
Civil War broke out. He received the distinction of
being offered in one day two commissions, one from
Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, as captain, and one
from New York. He accepted the latter and as captain
recruited and went to the front with a regiment which
afterwards became part of Meagher’s Irish brigade. For
his distinguished services on the field of battle he was
promoted to the rank of major. He resigned in 1862, with
the intention of returning to Boston to raise another
company for the war, but a few days afterwards fell from
his horse and died of his injuries.
Jan. 28. Dr. Patrick J. McGrath, a member of a prominent family
in Dublin, Ireland, died today at Bellevue Hospital,
New York. He sailed on one of the Peary expeditions to
the Polar regions, as medical adviser; enlisted in a
volunteer regiment during the war with Spain, and also
served throughout the Philippine campaign. Shortly
before his death he had received from Washington, D.
C., an appointment as surgeon in the canal zone in
Panama.