This association offered a reward for the apprehension of the author, and engaged lawyers to carry on the prosecution in case of discovery. The authorship having become known to Mr. Carey’s father, was to him a cause of great alarm, and efforts were made to appease the wrath of the committee, and induce them to abandon the prosecution by an offer to destroy the entire edition. This was of no avail, and after being concealed for some days, Mr. Carey got on board of a Holyhead packet and proceeded to Paris.
He carried with him a letter of introduction to a Catholic priest, by whom he was introduced to Dr. Franklin, then the American Minister to the French Court, and who had a small printing office at Passy for the purpose of printing his dispatches from America. In this office Mr. Carey was employed while this work lasted. Afterwards he found a position with the celebrated publisher, Didot, who was then printing some English books. While at Passy he made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Lafayette—whose friendship at a subsequent period became one of the most controlling influences of his future career.
In about twelve months he returned to Dublin, and the remainder of his apprenticeship having been purchased from McDonnel, he engaged for a time as the conductor of a paper called the Freeman’s Journal. Finally, on the 13th of October, 1783, his father furnished him with the means to establish a new paper called the Volunteers’ Journal. For this work, he says, he was “miserably qualified,” although he had “a superabundance of zeal and ardor, and a tolerable knack and facility of scribbling.” He adds: “The paper, as might have been expected, partook largely of the character of its proprietor and editor. Its career was enthusiastic and violent. It suited the temper of the times, exercised a decided influence on public opinion; and, in very short time, had a greater circulation than any other paper in Dublin, except the Evening Post, which had the great merit of calling into existence that glorious band of brothers, the Volunteers of Ireland, whose zeal and determined resolution to assert and defend the rights of country, struck terror into the British cabinet, and forced the ministry to knock off chains that had bound down the nation for centuries.”
“The Volunteers’ Journal, fanning the flame of patriotism which 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.