Few objects have excited a more general enquiry than the discovery of a north-west passage, in order to open a communication with the great pacific ocean and the East Indies, by a shorter navigation than by doubling those immense promontories, the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Every allurement of gain, and national emolument, has been proposed to encourage the attempt, but, hitherto, every attempt hath been fruitless, though the most experienced seamen have engaged in the undertaking. Our traveller suggested an attempt by land, across the north west parts of North America, and actually drew a chart of his proposed route for effecting his project, which, however visionary it may now be deemed, affords at least a proof of the enterprizing spirit of Captain Carver, and which he would, probably, have attempted, had any encouragement been afforded him: (introd. pag. [6]. and append. pag. [539], et seq.)
When he visited England, he appeared with the most favourable credentials of his character in every respect: many of these are now in my possession; but that which seemed to promise the most beneficial advantages, was conferred upon him by General Gage, and, in consequence of a petition presented to the king, and referred to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, our traveller had formed the fond hope of seeing his labours so far rewarded, as to be reimbursed those sums he had expended in the service of government, agreeable to the relation conveyed in the introduction to his travels.
In a large, free, and widely extended government, where every motion depends upon a variety of springs, the lesser and subordinate movements must be acted upon by the greater, and consequently the more inferior operations of state will be so distant, as not to be perceived in the grand machine: whether Captain Carver’s disappointments resulted from these principles, or that government did not estimate his services in equal proportion to his own idea of them, is not so easily ascertained, as that he thought himself not only neglected, but treated with injustice.
The condition of a suppliant is what his mind must have submitted to with reluctance. Men of superior endowments are liable to be jealous of the least inattention, which they are apt to consider as an insult on their distress. A feeling mind, like his, conscious of its dignity and superior merit, might not be able to stoop to that importunity and adulation, which are sometimes requisite to insure the smiles and favours of those in power; otherwise it might naturally be suggested, that his extensive acquaintance with America, and with the customs and languages of the Indians, in the interior parts of that vast continent, then the theatre of an unnatural and bloody contest, would have pointed him out as a most useful instrument in the hands of government.
With the advantages, however, of an intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, he united a determined loyalty to the king, and a fixed attachment to his American countrymen; and thus the principle of acting agreeably to the feelings of conscience, would equally operate upon him respecting the contending parties. He had repeatedly risked his life in the service of his prince, against whose government he was equally averse from drawing his sword, as against his transatlantic brethren: he might not, therefore, be deemed an important acquisition to the ruling powers here, and the prayer of his petition was scarcely heard in the clamours of popular commotion.
Persons of ingenuity, however oppressed by their own sufferings, in a busy commercial country, may strike out some means of subsistence; but, in a domestic state, where many depend upon the industry of an individual, the difficulty of procuring support is not only rendered more affecting to the feeling mind, but likewise greatly augmented. Captain Carver, after having exhausted his fortune, had now a family to support, without knowing how to turn his abilities to any means of succouring them. Distress of mind begets debility of body, which is still aggravated by penury, and a want of the common necessaries of life. His constitution, naturally firm, gradually grew weaker and weaker; but his regard to his family animated his spirit to exertions beyond the strength of his body, which enabled him to preserve existence through the winter of 1779, by acting as a clerk in a lottery-office; but the vital powers, succoured as they were by this casual support, diminished by certain, though imperceptible, degrees, till at length a putrid fever supervening a long continued dysentery brought on by want, put an end to the life of a man, who, after rendering, at the expence of fortune and health, and the risk of life, many important services to his country, perished through want in the first city of the world.
In size, Captain Carver was rather above the middle stature, and of a firm muscular texture; his features expressed a firmness of mind and boldness of resolution; and he retained a florid complexion to his latest moments.
In conversation he was social and affable, where he was familiar; but his extreme diffidence and modesty kept him in general reserved in company. In his familiar epistles, he commanded an easy and agreeable manner of writing; and some pieces of his poetry, which have been communicated to me, afford proofs of his lively imagination and of the harmony of his versification.
His only authentic publications I have seen are the present work, and a Treatise on the Culture of the Tobacco Plant, anno 1779. The former will speak for itself: the opinion of the public has, indeed, been fully testified by the rapid sale of two large editions of this work in the space of the last two years.
The Treatise on Tobacco is a small octavo of fifty-four pages, containing two engravings of the plant, and an account of its cultivation on the American continent. As this vegetable constitutes one of the most considerable branches of commerce betwixt the old and new hemispheres of the world, and thrives luxuriously in Europe as well as in America, it is now pretty generally known: from the elegance of the plant and beauty of its flowers, it is cultivated in gardens for ornament; in which character it will appear from a view of the annexed engraving of it.