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.