To George Washington from Mathew Carey, 21 April 1789
From Mathew Carey
Philadelphia, April 21, 1789
May it please your excellency,
In the prosecution of the American Museum—a work which your excellency has honoured with the most flattering approbation1—I have begun & mean to continue a series of documents & public papers, respecting the most interesting circumstances, skirmishes, and battles of the revolution. For want of better resources, I am obliged at present frequently to recur to that corrupted publication, the Remembrancer.2 If your excellency’s numerous avocations allowed to select from your papers those most interesting to the public, it would be of general benefit, besides conferring a particular favour on Your excellency’s obliged hble servt
Mathew Carey.
P.S. They shall be returned, if necessary.
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Carey wrote to GW in the late spring of 1788, in a letter that has not been found, about his need for money to continue publication of the American Museum and perhaps asking GW for financial support. On 25 June 1788 GW replied with praise for the publication, declaring that a “discontinuance of the Publication for want of proper support would, in my judgment, be an impeachment on the Understanding of this Country. For I am of opinion that the Work is not only eminently calculated to dissiminate political, agricultural, philosophical & other valuable information; but that it has been uniformly conducted with taste, attention, & propriety.” GW accompanied the statement with a note to Carey giving him liberty “to make whatsoever use you shall think proper of it.”
2. Carey is undoubtedly referring to the Remembrancer; or, Impartial Repository of Public Events, &c., published in England between 1775 and 1784.