CAREY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
We have been delighted with the perusal of this book, and consider it one of the most instructive as well as one of the most amusing of autobiographies. The ruling feature of the work is candor—a candor of the rarest and noblest description. The author has not scrupled, or even hesitated, in a single instance to declare, without prevarication, the truth and the whole truth, however little redounding to his own credit. Nor in the details so frankly laid before the eye of the public, are the many—very many other excellent qualities less manifest, which have exalted the autobiographer to so enviable a station in the opinions of his fellow-citizens. In the whole private and public course of Mr. Mathew Carey, from that chivalrous Essay against Duelling, of which he has rendered so amusing an account in the commencement of his "Life," to the more important yet equally Quixottic publication of the Olive Branch, the strictest scrutiny can detect nothing derogatory to the character of "the noblest work of God, an honest man." His energy, his high-mindedness, and his indomitable perseverance, will force themselves upon the most casual observer. It is not surprising that, with qualifications so well adapted for success in life, Mr. C. should have been enabled finally to set at defiance the innumerable obstacles which obstructed his path. Indeed, although few men have labored under greater incidental disadvantages, very few have been better prepared to overcome them by both moral and physical constitution.
There is much in these Memoirs of Mr. Carey, which will bring to the mind of the reader Benjamin Franklin, his shrewdness, his difficulties, and his indefatigability. It is therefore almost unnecessary to add, that apart from its other merits, the Autobiography now before us has all the value so unequivocally due to good example. Its perusal cannot well fail of having a salutary effect upon those who struggle with adversity—of imparting a salutary strength to all who grow feeble under the pressure of the innumerable harassing cares which encumber and weigh so ponderously upon the "man of the world." It may, indeed, if rightly considered, have a still more beneficial influence. It may incite to good deeds. It may induce a love of our fellow-men, in many bosoms hitherto self-hardened against the urgent demands of philanthropy. What so likely to bring about a kindly spirit in any human heart as the contemplation of a kindly spirit in others?
It is perhaps already known to many that Mr. Carey was born in Dublin in 1760. His hatred of oppression, which broke out, as early as his seventeenth year, in the "Essay against Duelling," to which we have already alluded, and which, in 1779, rendered him obnoxious to the British Government, and forced him into a temporary exile, at length, in 1784, made it necessary for him to abandon his country altogether, and seek an asylum in America. He arrived in Philadelphia, greatly embarrassed in his pecuniary circumstances; and an incident by means of which he obtained relief, has proved of so deep interest to ourselves, that we cannot but think it may prove equally so to our readers. We copy the following from page 10 of the Autobiography.
Behold me now landed in Philadelphia, with about a dozen guineas in my pocket, without relation, or friend, and even without an acquaintance, except my compagnons de voyage, of whom very few were eligible associates.
While I was contemplating a removal into the country, where I could have boarded at about a dollar or a dollar and a quarter a week, intending to wait the arrival of my funds, a most extraordinary and unlooked-for circumstance occurred, which changed my purpose, gave a new direction to my views, and, in some degree, colored the course of my future life. It reflects great credit on the Marquess de La Fayette, who was then at Mount Vernon, to take leave of Gen. Washington. A young gentleman of the name of Wallace, a fellow passenger of mine, had brought letters of recommendation to the General; and having gone to his seat to deliver them, fell into the Marquess's company, and in the course of conversation, the affairs of Ireland came on the tapis. The Marquess, who had, in the Philadelphia papers, seen an account of my adventures with the Parliament, and the persecution I had undergone, inquired of Wallace, what had become of the poor persecuted Dublin printer? He replied, "he came passenger with me, and is now in Philadelphia," stating the boarding house where I had pitched my tent. On the arrival of the Marquess in this city, he sent me a billet, requesting to see me at his lodgings, whither I went. He received me with great kindness; condoled with me on the persecution I had undergone; inquired into my prospects;—and having told him that I proposed, on receipt of my funds, to set up a newspaper, he approved the idea, and promised to recommend me to his friends, Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimons, &c. &c. After half an hour's conversation, we parted. Next morning, while I was at breakfast, a letter from him was handed me, which, to my very great surprise, contained four one hundred dollar notes of the Bank of North America. This was the more extraordinary and liberal, as not a word had passed between us on the subject of giving or receiving, borrowing or lending money. And a remarkable feature in the affair was, that the letter did not contain a word of reference to the enclosure.
In the course of the day I went to his lodgings, and found that he had, an hour or two previously, departed for Princeton, where Congress then sat, having been in some measure driven from Philadelphia, by a mutiny among the soldiers, who were clamorous for their pay, and had kept them in a state of siege for three hours in the State House. I wrote to him to New York, whither, I understood, he had gone from Princeton, expressive of my gratitude in the strongest terms, and received a very kind and friendly answer.
I cannot pass over this noble trait in the character of the illustrious Marquess, without urging it strongly on the overgrown wealthy of our country, as an example worthy of imitation. Here was a foreign nobleman, who had devoted years of the prime of his life, and greatly impaired his fortune, in the service of a country, separated by thousands of miles distance from his native land. After these mighty sacrifices, he meets, by an extraordinary accident, with a poor persecuted young man, destitute of friends and protectors—his heart expands towards him—he freely gives him means of making a living without the most remote expectation of return, or of ever again seeing the object of his bounty. He withdraws from the city to avoid the expression of the gratitude of the beneficiary. I have more than once assumed, and I now repeat, that I doubt whether in the whole life of this (I had almost said) unparalleled man, there is to be found any thing, which, all the circumstances of the case considered, more highly elevates his character.1