CAR 



CAR 



hill bears extremely heavy on the shaft- 

 horse : this should be obviated by cock- 

 ing the cart backwards, according to the 

 practice in the west of England. 



CARRIER, laics relating to. Every per- 

 son carrying goods for hire is deemed a 

 carrier, and as such is liable in law for any 

 loss or damage that may happen to them 

 whilst in his custody. Waggoners, cap- 

 tains of ships, lightermen, 8tc. are there- 

 fore carriers; but a stage -coachman is 

 not within the custom as a carrier : nei- 

 ther are hackney-coachmen carriers with- 

 in the custom of the realm, so as to be 

 chargeable for the loss of goods, unless 

 they are expressly paid for that purpose, 

 for their undertaking is only to carry 

 the person. If a person take hire for 

 carrying goods, although he be not a 

 common carrier, he may nevertheless be 

 charged upon a special assumpsit; for 

 where hire is taken, a promise is implied ; 

 and where goods are delivered to a car- 

 rier, and he is robbed of them, he shall 

 be charged and answer for there, on ac- 

 count of the hire ; and the carrier can be 

 no loser, as he may recover against the 

 hundred. 



Goods sent by a carrier cannot be dis- 

 trained for rent ; and any person carry- 

 ing goods for all persons indifferently is 

 to be deemed a common carrier, as far as 

 relates to this privilege. A delivery to a 

 servant is a delivery to the master, and if 

 goods are delivered to a carrier's porter, 

 and lost, an action will lie against the 

 carrier. 



Where a carrier gives notice by print- 

 ed proposals that he will not be responsi- 

 ble for certain valuable goods if lost, if 

 more than the value of a sum specified, 

 unless entered and paid for as such, and 

 valuable goods of that description are de- 

 livered to him, by a person who knows 

 the conditions, but, concealing the value, 

 pays no more than the ordinary price of 

 carriage and booking, the carrier is, un- 

 der such circumstances, neither respon- 

 sible to the sum specified, nor liable to 

 repay the sum paid for carriage and book- 

 ing. 



A carrier, who undertakes for hire to 

 carry goods, is bound to deliver them at 

 all events, unless damaged and destroyed 

 by the act of God, or the king's enemies ; 

 and if any accident, however inevitable, 

 happen through the intervention of hu- 

 man means, a carrier becomes responsible. 



CARRONADE, a cannon of peculiar 

 construction, being much shorter and 

 lighter than the common cannon, and 

 having a chamber for the powder like a 

 jnortar ; they are generally of a large ca- 



libre, and carried on the upper works, as 

 the poop and forecastle. They are nam- 

 ed from Carron in Scotland, the town in- 

 which they were first made. 



CARTES (REKES DBS,) in biography. 

 Few persons have a higher claim to dis- 

 tinction than this philosopher ; we shall, 

 therefore, in the present article, inter- 

 weave an account of his system with that 

 of his life. 



Des Cartes was a native of Touraine r 

 in France, and born in 1596. While a 

 child, he discovered an eager curiosity 

 to inquire into the nature and causes of 

 things, which procured him the appella- 

 tion of the young philosopher. At eight 

 years of age he was committed to the 

 care of a Jesuit, under whom he made 

 very uncommon proficiency. He soon 

 began to discover defects in existing sys- 

 tems, and hoped to be the means of 

 giving to science a new and more pleas- 

 ing aspect. After spending five years in 

 the study of the languages and polite 

 literature in general, he entered upon a 

 course of mathematics, logic, and morals, 

 according to the methods by which they 

 were then taught. With these he was 

 so much disgusted, that he determined to 

 frame for himself a brief system of rules 

 or canons of reasoning, in which he fol- 

 lowed the strict method of the geome- 

 tricians. He pursued the same plan 

 with respect to morals. After all, how- 

 ever, he was so little satisfied with his 

 own attainments, that he left college, la- 

 menting that the fruits of eight years' 

 study were only the full conviction, that 

 as yet he knew nothing with perfect clear- 

 ness and certainty. He even threw aside 

 his books, with a resolution to pursue no 

 other knowledge, than that which he 

 could find within himself and in the great 

 volume of nature. At the age of seven- 

 teen he was sent to Paris, where the 

 love of pleasure, for a moment, seemed to 

 overcome all desire of philosophical dis- 

 tinction, but an introduction to some 

 learned men recalled his attention to ma- 

 thematical studies: these he again prose- 

 cuted in solitude and silence for the 

 space of two years, after which he enter- 

 ed as a volunteer in the Dutch army, in 

 order that he might study the living world 

 as well as read books. In this situation he 

 wrote a dissertation to prove that brutes 

 are automata. From the Dutch army Des 

 Cartes passed over to the Bavarian service, 

 but wherever he went he conversed with 

 learned men, and rather appeared in the 

 character of a philosopher than that of a 

 soldier. In 1622 he quitted the army, 

 returned to his own country, with no 



