988 



CANNING, VISCOUNT. 



CAREY, WILLIAM, D.D. 



986 



* CANNING, CHARLES JOHN, FIRST VISCOUNT, second son of 

 the Rt. HOD. George Canning, was born at Brompton in 1812, and was 

 educated at Cbristchurch College, Oxford, where he graduated first 

 class in classics, and second class in mathematics in 1833. In 1835 he 

 married the eldest daughter of the first Lord Stuart de Rothsay. In 

 1836 he entered the House of Commons as member for Warwickshire. 

 On the death of his mother in 1837 he succeeded to the title, and took 

 his seat in the House of Peers. In 1841 he became Under Secretary 

 of State for Foreign Affairs under the Earl of Aberdeen in Sir Robert 

 Peel's ministry, in which office he continued till 1846 ; he was after- 

 wards a Commissioner of Woods and Forests; in the Earl of Aber- 

 deen's ministry he was Post-master-General ; and in 1855 he was 

 nominated by Lord Palmerston's government to the governor-general- 

 ship of India. This office he assumed at Calcutta on February 29, 

 1856. Early in 1857 the disastrous mutiny in the Bengal army broke 

 out. The great outburst of disaffection was on the 10th of May at 

 Meerut, from which place the mutineers marched upon Delhi, where 

 they arrived on the llth, and being joined by several native regiments, 

 they took possession of the place, committing unheard-of atrocities. 

 Mutiny, disaster, massacre, and a perfect reign of terror followed. 

 Calcutta itself was threatened. Soldiers were demanded from Eng- 

 land ; from 30,000 to 40,000 men were forwarded ; and Sir Colin 

 Campbell, at a day's notice, undertook the responsible office of Com- 

 mander-in-chief. The British forces already in India took up a position 

 near Delhi on the 20th of May under General Anson, who died of 

 cholera on the 27th. He was succeeded on the 8th of June by Sir H. 

 Barnard, who likewise died of cholera on the 5th of July, and was suc- 

 ceeded by General Reid. This general had to resign on account of 

 ill-health, and was succeeded by General Wilson, who, having received 

 reinforcements under General Nicholson, commenced the assault on 

 Delhi on September 14th, and after frightful slaughter gained pos- 

 session of the place on Sept. 20th. Lucknow, in which a small body 

 of soldiers and civilians had been cooped up for months, was partially 

 relieved by General Haveloek, after a succession of victories over the 

 mutineers, on the 25th of September. Colonel Greathed, pursuing 

 the mutineers after the capture of Delhi, obtained several successes 

 over them. As governor-general, Viscount Canning's measures have 

 produced considerable discussion, especially the order for the restric- 

 tion of the uewsp-riper press, both English and native, and that for the 

 giving up or registry of arms. 



CAREY, WILLIAM, D.D., principal founder of the Serampore 

 Mission, was the son of the master of a small free-school at the 

 village of Paulerspury, in Northamptonshire, where he was born on 

 the 17th of August 1761. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Hackle- 

 ton, but becoming early the subject of deep religious impressions, he 

 began to preach about the age of twenty, and, without entirely giving 

 up his business, settled at Moulton, in his native county, as pastor 

 of a small Baptist church, whence, in 1789, he removed to Leices- 

 ter. It was during his residence in obscurity at Moulton that 

 Carey wrote 'An Enquiry into the obligation of Christians to use 

 means for the Conversion of the Heathen,' a work which led, in an 

 important degree, to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society ; 

 but it was not published till some years after it was written, it being 

 found difficult to excite even ministers to any feeling of interest in 

 the subject of foreign missions. The society having been organised, 

 Carey and a Mr. Thomas, who for nearly ten years had been exert- 

 ing hirni-elf in India to promote Christianity, were chosen as the 

 first Missionaries. It deserves to be mentioned as an indication of 

 the difficulties to be overcome by the society's first agents, espe- 

 cially in consequence of the opposition of the English iiast India 

 Company to any efforts for the evangelisation of Hindustan, that 

 Carey and his companion Mr. Thomas, were, before the ship in which 

 they set sail finally left the coast of England, set ashore in consequence 

 of threats held out iu an anonymous letter which followed the captain ; 

 and were thus compelled to take passage in a Danish ship, which was 

 not under the Company's control. For some months after their 

 arrival at Calcutta the missionaries endured great trials, and they 

 were at length compelled to accept engagements to superintend 

 indigo factories in the vicinity of Malda, sparing what time and 

 money they could for the promotion of their primary object. Iu 

 1795 Carey began the work of Bible translation; and in 1799, in 

 which year he removed to Kidderpore, he bought a press and print- 

 ing apparatus. A third missionary had been sent out in 1796 to join 

 Carey and his fellow-labourer; and in 1799 four others, with their 

 wives, including Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Marshman, and Mr. Ward, who 

 had been brought up to the printing business, and to whom Carey 

 had, before leaving England, expressed a hope that he might join the 

 mission, in anticipation of the necessity which might arisa for his 

 practical knowledge of the art, were sent out. As the East India 

 Company would not allow them to settle as missionaries in their 

 dominions, the mission establishment was, about the time of their 

 arrival, removed from Kidderpore to the Danish settlement of Seram- 

 pore, where for many years the work of translating and printing the 

 Scriptures and other books in the various languages of Hindustan 

 was carried on with surprising energy. It appears from the appendix 

 to a ' Tenth Memoir respecting the Translation of the Sacred Scrip- 

 tures into the Oriental Languages, by the Serampore Brethren,' which 

 was published in London in 1834, that the translation and printing 



of the New Testament into Bengali was completed in 1801 ; and that 

 jetween that date and the month of July 1832, the whole of the Bible 

 was rendered into this language, and either the whole or part into at 

 ,east thirty-nine other Oriental languages or dialects, 212,565 copies 

 of the New Testament and other portions of the Bible having been 

 .saued during that ticne from the Mission press, in addition to many 

 printed for the British and Foreign and some other Bible societies. 

 During the same period a great number of religious tracts and mis- 

 cellaneous works were also produced in several different languages, 

 Deluding a Bengali map of India, a grammar, two dictionaries, a 

 semi-weekly newspaper, and a ' Youth's Magazine,' in Bengali and 

 English ; and, in Bengali alone, several large volumes of Government 

 Regulations, a History of India, a translation of Goldsmith's History 

 of England, a Treatise on Anatomy, intended as the first volume of 

 an Encyclopaedia of the Sciences, a Treatise on Geography, and a 

 translation of the Pilgrim's Progress. The list of works in Sanscrit, 

 Chinese, and other languages comprises also many important books. 



In these great undertakings Dr. Carey was the chief director, while 

 a very large proportion of the actual literary labour also rested upon 

 him, in addition to which he performed the duties of professor of 

 Oriental languages in the college of Fort William, at Calcutta, from 

 its establishment in 1800 until its virtual abolition by the discon- 

 tinuance of English professors about the year 1830, when he received 

 a pension from government. He died at Serampore on the 9th of 

 June 1834, in his seventy-third year, leaving some autobiographical 

 memoranda which have been used by his nephew, the Rev. Eustace 

 Carey, in his ' Memoir' of him published in London in 1836, to which 

 a portrait is prefixed. In a biographical sketch by his son Jonathan, 

 incorporated in the memoir referred to, it is observed that in all 

 objects connected with the general good of his adopted country, Dr. 

 Carey took an active part, and that "he prepared, under the direc- 

 tion of a noble lady then resident in India, the prospectus of an agri- 

 cultural society in the East, to which was united an horticultural 

 society, of which he was a member, and in the affairs of which he 

 took a lively interest, till his last illness ; and he had the gratification 

 to see that the society became at length the most flourishing and inte- 

 resting society in the East, in which gentlemen of the first respec- 

 tability, from all parts of the country, united, and which still continues 

 an eminently useful and nourishing institution." Botany was, indeed, 

 a very favourite study with Dr. Carey, whose share in the publication 

 of Roxburgh's 'Flora Indica' is noticed under ROXBURGH, WILLIAM, 

 M.D., vol. v., col. 132. "In the Asiatic Society," continues his son, 

 "he also took an active part; and for many years, up to his death, 

 was one of the members of the committee of papers, and afforded con- 

 siderable information, and in various ways promoted the general 

 interests of the institution." "At his death," he adds, "the Bishop 

 of Calcutta, in a speech, passed the highest encomiums on the cha- 

 racter and talents of Dr. Carey ; and a minute was recorded expressive 

 of the loss sustained by the society, and their regret at the removal 

 of one of its most excellent members." 



From ' Remarks on the Character and Labours of Dr. Carey, as an 

 Oriental Scholar and Translator,' by H. H. Wilson, Esq., Boden Pro- 

 fessor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford, which is also appended 

 to the ' Memoir ' by Eustace Carey, we select the following sketch of 

 his more important and legitimate labours. " At the time," observes 

 Mr. Wilson, " when Dr. Carey commenced his career of Oriental study, 

 the facilities that have since accumulated were wholly wanting, and 

 the student was destitute of all elementary aid. With the exception 

 of those languages which are regarded by the natives of India as 

 sacred and classical, such as the Arabic and Sanscrit, few of the Indian 

 dialects have ever been reduced to their elements by original writers. 

 The principles of their construction are preserved by practice alone, 

 and a grammar or vocabulary forms no part of such scanty literature 

 as they may happen to possess ; accustomed from infancy to the 

 familiar use of their vernacular inflexions and idioms, the natives of 

 India never thought it necessary to lay down rules for their applica- 

 tion ; and even in the present day they cannot, without difficulty, be 

 prevailed upon to study systematically the dialects which they daily 

 and hourly speak. Europeans however are diflerently circumstanced. 

 With them the precept must precede the practice, if they wish to 

 attain a critical knowledge of a foreign tongue. But when the Oriental 

 languages first became the subjects of investigation, those precepts 

 were yet to be developed, and the early students had therefore as 

 they gathered words and phrases, to investigate the principles upon 

 which they were constructed, and to frame, as they proceeded, a 

 grammar for themselves." " The talents of Dr. Carey were," he adds, 

 " eminently adapted to such an undertaking." Mr. Wilson goes on to 

 state that Dr. Carey's Sanscrit Grammar was the first complete one 

 published, his Telinga grammar the first printed in English, his Kar- 

 nate and Mahratta grammars the first published works developing the 

 structure of those languages, his Mahratta dictionary one of the first 

 attempted, and his Punjabi grammar the only authority for the lan- 

 guage of the Sikh nation; "and although," he remarks, " lie must 

 concede to Halhed the credit of first reducing to rule the construc- 

 tion of the Bengali tongue, yet by his own grammar and dictionary, 

 and other useful rudimental publications, Dr. Carey may claim the 

 merit of having raised it from the condition of a rude and unsettled 

 dialect to the character of a regular and permanent form of aoeech. 



