CAREY. 



361 



Serampore and surrounding country were also 

 more populous than the vicinity of Malda, and 

 afforded better accommodation and greater facili- 

 ties for printing the sacred scriptures in the native 

 languages. The mission family, upon its establish- 

 ment at Serampore, consisted of the senior mis- 

 sionary, Mr Carey, with three younger assistants, 

 Messrs. Ward, Marshman, and Fountain, then re- 

 cently arrived from England, together with their 

 wives and children. A school for children and 

 youth was immediately opened, and preaching com- 

 menced ; the missionaries supplying both depart- 

 ments of service in rotation. A printing press was 

 also established with the consent of the governor, 

 and under a condition that it should be confined in 

 its operations to the printing of philological works 

 and the scriptures in the native languages ; and an 

 edition of the scriptures in the Bengalee language 

 was immediately commenced with the aid of types 

 from Europe. 



In 1801, Mr Carey's success in the study of the 

 vernacular languages of India recommended him to 

 the professorship of the Sanskrit, Bengalee and 



ahratta languages at Fort William. This ap- 

 pointment operated very favourably for the inter- 

 ests of the mission, by securing for the missionaries 

 the avowed protection, and, to a certain extent, 

 the patronage of the government, and by furnish- 

 ing the professor with more ample pecuniary 

 means, a large portion of which he conscientiously 

 devoted for its support. 



In 1805, Mr Carey published his grammar of the 

 Mahratta language, and in the same year opened a 

 mission chapel in the Loll bazaar in Calcutta ; but 

 in the following year, while Sir George Barlow 

 held provisionally charge of the government of 

 India, the Vellore mutiny occurred, supposed to 

 have been occasioned by the apprehension of the 

 native troops lest the Company should determine 

 to pursue a system of forcible proselytism. This 

 event so alarmed the Bengal council that orders 

 were issued for the discontinuance, for a time at 

 least, of all missionary exertions. The proceed- 

 ings in India consequent on the Vellore mutiny 

 led, of course, to agitation and discussion at home, 

 in the court of directors, the court of proprie- 

 tors, in parliament, and from the press ; and ter- 

 minated in the removal of much prejudice and 

 many doubts, and in settling the public mind, so as 

 finally to overcome all obstacles in this country to 

 the discreet employment of means for the conver- 

 sion of the heathen. 



About the year 1805, Mr Carey received from 

 one of the British universities a diploma as doc- 

 tor of divinity, and in the following year was 

 elected a member of the Asiatic Society of Cal- 

 cutta. From this period to the close of his earthly 

 career, the mission over which Mr Carey presided 

 appears to have been almost uniformly prosperous. 

 In 1814, the missionaries had twenty stations in 

 India, at which the distribution of religious tracts 

 and the sacred scriptures, together with the edu- 

 cation of children, and at some of them preaching, 

 were constantly carried on. 



In the following year, 1815, the new charter 

 act of 1813, which had made express provision for 

 the moral improvement of the natives of India, 

 rame into operation, and not only gave a legal 

 sanction to the exertions of the missionaries, as 

 schoolmasters or teachers, but provided funds 

 which were directed towards the same end, so far, 

 at least, as to the education of the natives. 



In the department of philology, Dr Carey's la- 

 bours were great ; his Mahratta Grammar, already 

 mentioned, was followed by a Sanskrit Grammar, 

 4to., in 1806; a Mahratta Dictionary, 8vo., in 

 1810; a Punjabee Grammar, 8vo., in 1812; a Te- 

 linga Grammar, 8vo., in 1814; also between the 

 years 1806 and 1810 he published the Raymayana, 

 in the original text, carefully collated with the 

 most authentic MSS. in three volumes 4to. His 

 philological works of a later date, are a Bengalee 

 Dictionary in three vols. 4to., 1818, of which a 

 second edition was published in 1825 ; and another 

 in 8vo. in 18271830; a Bhotanta Dictionary, 

 4to., 1826; also a Grammar of the same language, 

 edited by him and Dr Marshman. He had also 

 prepared a Dictionary of the Sanskrit, which was 

 nearly completed, when a fire broke out in Seram- 

 pore and burnt down the printing office, destroy- 

 ing the impression, together with the copy, and 

 other property. 



The versions of the sacred scriptures which 

 have issued from the Serampore press, and in the 

 preparation of which Dr Carey took an active and 

 laborious part, are numerous. They are in the 

 following languages : Sanskrit, Hindee, Brij- 

 Bhassa, Mahratta, Bengalee, Orissa or Ooriya, 

 Telinga, Kurnata, Maldivian, Gujurattee, Bulo- 

 shee, Pushtoo, Punjabee or Shekh, Kashmeer, 

 Assam, Burman, Pali or Magudha, Tamul, Cinga- 

 lese, Armenian, Malay, Hindostanee, and Persian ; 

 to which must be added the Chinese. Dr Carey 

 lived to see the sacred text, chiefly by his instru- 

 mentality, translated into the vernacular dialects 

 of more than forty different tribes, and thus made 

 accessible to nearly 200,000,000 of human beings, 

 exclusive of the Chinese empire, in which the la- 

 bours of the Serampore missionaries have been in 

 some measure superseded by those of Dr Morrison. 



But extensive as was the range which this ample 

 field of science presented to the mind of Dr Carey, 

 and necessarily indefatigable as must have been his 

 exertions in the cultivation of it, it did not satisfy 

 the ardour of his genius, which sought in the science 

 of botany another field, unquestionably a de- 

 lightful one, whereon to exhaust his mental ener- 

 gies. To the study of botany he appears to have 

 given much attention, and to have corresponded 

 with the botanical societies in Europe, assisting 

 their exertions, and receiving in return similar 

 assistance in his own, by the transfer of seeds from 

 one country to the other. Dr Carey has also left 

 behind him a report on the agriculture of Dinage- 

 pore, in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Researches; 

 and a catalogue of Indian medicinal plants and 

 drugs in the eleventh volume, under the name 

 of Dr Fleming. But his principal service to the 

 science of botany, and his last work, was the edit- 

 ing of his deceased friend Dr Roxburgh's Flora 

 Medica, in three vols. 8vo. 



The year 1834 terminated the labours of this 

 excellent man. His health had bten dedining for 

 several years, when, in September, 1833, a stroke 

 of apoplexy prostrated his remaining energies, and 

 led his friends to anticipate his speedy removal. 

 Through the hot season of 1834 he waj confined 

 to his bed in a state of great helplessness, till at 

 length, on Monday, June 9, he died. He was 

 thrice married, and had several children. By his 

 will he renounced all right to the property or pro- 

 mises of the Baptist Missionary Society at Seram- 

 ! pore ; or to those of his wife, Grace Carey, amount- 

 i ing to 25,000 rupees, more or^Jess, which had 



