were producers, they would necessarily be scattered so widely as to be deprived of the advantages we have mentioned. And having established this point as a foundation work, we propose to consider trade in its more particular features, and discover, if possible, what are the principles that ought to govern it.

ART. V.-SKETCHES OF DISTINGUISHED MERCHANTS.

NUMBER III.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE LATE NICHOLAS BROWN.

It should ever make the heart sorrowful, to see the good among our race passing away from earth; and thrice so when the conviction forces itself upon us, that we may hardly hope their places will be filled by others so pure and noble. The young may go down to the grave, leaving a spotless name gemmed with many virtues, and beyond the narrow circle of a few friends and mourning relatives, none will know nor sorrow for their going; and there may be many old men, with silver hair, who in their well-spanned, upright lives, passed quietly and within narrow limits, have done little else than good to all their fellows-these, too, will be mourned, though perchance not by many, save those they knew and blessed while living; and yet when these-the young or old-depart, society is much the loser. But when one is taken from us, whose youth reached back to the birth of our republic, whose early years were spent amid the revolutionary struggles of our fathers, whose experience measured our whole being as a nation, and whose memory thronged with the recollections of a period, of which every year leaves fewer living witnesses; and, when added to all this, an old man is cut down, whose life since boyhood has been one of activity and usefulness, whose public services and noble benefactions have spread widely his reputation and his name; then ought all to regret his departure, for the whole community sustains a loss, it need not shame to mourn. Such men as

these are rare, and soon will pass away forever; and one of them, Nicholas Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, has just now gone to another world, and slumbers with the dead of ages. He was a merchant-upright and honorable-possessing an adventurous spirit, guided by a judgment that seldom erred. He loved the employment he had chosen, and ardently pursued it during half a century, toiling steadily on, and firmly encountering the dark changes that mark the commercial history of our country during that long period. Fortune smiled upon his labors, and dealt gently by the good ships and rich merchandise he sent forth upon the sea; and there are few men by whom the well-earned wealth of a long life has been applied so liberally, and for such wise and good purposes, as by him whose death we now record. We applaud the exertions of no man, however adventurous and persevering, whose sole object is the acquisition of riches, that he may hoard them up in the miser's chest, We think such men are oftener a curse than a blessing to the society in which they live; for their gold enables them to act the oppressor, when, without it, they would be powerless but he who, like the subject of this sketch, toils for wealth, that with it he may glad the hearts of his fellow-men, and rear up benevolent

institutions to cheer the lives of those whom God afflicts with disease and suffering, deserves to be remembered in gratitude, long after the marble upon his tomb shall have crumbled into dust. Every age can claim a few such men, and right glad are we to know that not the least of these are merchants. We feel a pride as we con over their names and reflect that for many generations, that class of mankind to whose interests we have dedicated this work, have well maintained their station among those who are remembered as the noblest benefactors of our race. They have redeemed the name of the merchant from the reproach it once bore, of wor shipping nought save the mammon of gold; they have proved him capable of gathering in wealth on the one hand, and widely and liberally dispensing it on the other; to them we owe many of our most useful and enlight. ened institutions, and to them we are indebted for much that now sheds a moral and intellectual light over the face of society. And were we called upon to mention one of the present age, who has gone onward upon the earth, spreading about him the blessings we have here mentioned, few could be named who have done more than the man whose life, in its most prominent outlines, we now propose briefly to trace.

Nicholas Brown was a native of New England, and was born on the fourth of April, 1760, at Providence, in the state of Rode Island. His father was a merchant of considerable eminence, and through life bore the name of an honorable and good man. He was in affluent circumstances, and to this was his son indebted for an education more liberal and finished, than usually falls to the lot of the merchant to acquire. At the age of thirteen he entered Rhode Island College, since named, in honor of himself, Brown University, from whence he graduated before reaching the age of eighteen. But two or three of his classmates, then fifteen in number, are now living: save these few, all have been gathered to their fathers. Towards this institution of learning, he ever evinced the warmest venera. tion and regard; and during half a century of his life, he was the main pillar of its prosperity. For fifty years after completing his studies within its walls, he was officially and intimately associated with the councils that sustained its rising fame; and most generously did he pour forth his gold for the advancement of its interests. During a period of twenty-nine years he was its treasurer: in 1791, he was elected a member of its Board of Trustees; and from 1825 until his death, he was a member of its Board of Fellows. At different periods of his life, he erected, solely at his own expense, "Hope College," and "Manning Hall," two edifices attached to the University, the latter of which he named in honor of Dr. Manning, who was the president of the institution during the time he pursued his studies there; and whose memory he ever cherished with the utmost respect and admiration. He gave at one time five thousand dollars for the establishment of a professorship; at another, ten thousand dollars towards the erection of Rhode Island Hall, and the president's mansion house, and when the fund of twenty-five thousand dollars was raised for the benefit of the library and of the chemical and philosophical departments, he bestowed towards it the like munificent donation. And it has been estimated, that including his bequest to this University, the whole amount to which it stands debtor to his bounty, falls little, if any, short of one hundred thou. sand dollars. Under the auspices of such a man, no one need wonder that this temple of learning now ranks deservedly high among its sister institutions in our land; and it affords us deep gratification to know, that ere

death made cold the heart and dark the brain of him whose name it bears, he saw it careering onward in the highest prosperity and usefulness.

But let us return to the earlier periods of his life. When twenty-two his father died, from whom he inherited a handsome fortune; and had he been like many young men thus situated, whom we are frequently pained to see wasting their time and energies, and all the advantages so lavished upon them, in idle, enervating pleasures; he, too, would have squandered his patrimony mid the gay round of the world's enjoyments, leaving behind him a name remembered only when read upon his tombstone. He possessed all the elements necessary to pass a life of easy happiness. A liberal education had prepared his mind to enjoy literary pursuits, the conversation of the learned, and the society of the rich and fashionable. Wealth unsought and unearned had descended upon him, placing all these enjoyments within his reach, and inviting him to taste the pleasures that clustered so temptingly around. To resist all these combined attractions, required the exercise of much self-denial, personal control, and a high and honorable ambition. These he possessed, and the romance of life, at that season of youth when the whole world is clad in fancy's brightest colors, was exchanged for the silent counting-room, and the crowded wharf. He became a merchant in the most ample and comprehensive sense of that term; and in connection with the late Thomas P. Ives, who had married his only sister, commenced his commercial career. Possessing a capital of sufficient magnitude to embark heavily in foreign trade, it was quickly en. grossed in wide-spread maritime operations, extending to almost every clime; and in the diversified risks to which it was exposed, affording ample opportunities to test the strength and sagacity of the mind by which it was controlled. To every emergency he was found fully equal, nor quailed he in those dark hours of anxiety, to which the merchant who trusts his all on the bosom of the deep, is more than any other man liable to experience. Nor were the winds and waves, nor the tempests that dance so wildly upon the sea, his only or worst enemies. Wars troubled the ocean, and armed ships swept its surface; and the vessel of the peaceful trader was seized and condemned. The French revolution, carrying the destructive policy of restrictive measures in its train, hurled its stormy elements through the commercial world, burying the fortunes and crushing the prospects of hundreds in their course; and many years later came the struggle between the infant navy of our own country and the colossal maritime power of Great Britain, spreading disasters to the commerce of American merchants throughout every clime and on every sea: and through both these whirlwind periods, firm as rock, stood the mercantile reputation of Brown and Ives; the mind of its senior partner growing more calm and active, and calling new resources to its aid, as the elements gathered more dark and threatening around the commercial fortunes of his house. That he was honorable in his dealings, and forgot not the probity and integrity of the man, in the gain-loving spirit of the trader, we need hardly affirm; and this indeed is evidenced in nothing so strongly, as in his long-prospered life; for seldom do we see the career of half a century flourish, without interruption, upon the earnings of dishonesty and fraud. Added to this honesty of purpose too, which pervaded, and as it were, sanctified every business transaction in which he engaged, was an element of success which we fear is regarded by many as an object of too little importance to repay the toil with which it is acquired, though we

assure all such, that nothing is more essential to enable the merchant to secure a fortunate result to his maritime undertakings :-we mean the possession of an accurate and varied knowledge of the wants and resources of his own, and those of other nations to which his trade extended. Of this information he possessed an amount, which in magnitude and usefulness few in his age had acquired; and this, combined with that knowledge of the commercial marine enjoyed both by our own and the European world, in which no man was his superior, enabled him to conduct his far-stretching Inercantile operations, with a prospect of ultimate success amounting almost to certainty.

Until the death of his partner, in 1836, Mr. Brown continued actively and unremittingly engaged in the employment which had so deeply engrossed his energies for more than forty years, and to which he seemed bound more by habits of industry, an enterprising spirit, and a love of that excitement with which the mind of the adventurous merchant is so much filled, than by any desire to enlarge his already ample fortune. After that event, he engaged less ardently in the busy concerns of life, though until a short time previous to his death, he was accustomed to the daily transaction of business at his counting-room, and was in the constant habit of mingling in the affairs of that active commercial world to which he had become wedded by the ties of half a century. On the 27th of October last, after suffering a considerable period with the dropsy, he died, in the seventy-third year of his age. Of the many who are daily leaving this for another world, there are few whose names will be so warmly and reverently cherished, as the name of this man. Few have lived so long a life, and passed to the tomb less tainted with the vices of the world; and few, very few there are, who have done less injury and more good unto their fellow men. In public life, he ever pursued a consistent and honorable course. With his politics we have nothing to do:-they were of the old whig school;-such as were entertained by Washington and Hamilton; and for these he will not by us be upbraided or censured. It is enough for us to know, that he adhered to this political creed with the sincerity and truthfulness of an upright and honest man. For this, and it is no common virtue, he deserves our admiration. For many years he occupied a seat in the legislative councils of his native State, and at one time held the office of first Senator. The duties of these stations he discharged with dignity and honor, not so much swerved by the tyrannical dictates of party spirit, as many others who professed to yield less obedience to its power. The last political act of his existence was performed at Harrisburg. He was a member of the convention that met there to nomine a candidate for the presidency of our Union. He cast his vote for the departed Harrison; he saw him elevated to a seat a monarch might envy; he saw him wear his robes of state for a brief season, and then sink into a grave, lowly as the tomb of the mendicant ;-humble as the one soon to be occupied by himself.

In private life the character of Mr. Brown was pure and unexceptionable. Over his temper and passions he exercised an almost perfect control, and nature had endowed him with a kind heart and generous impulses. He was married twice :-to his first wife in 1791. In 1798 she died, and in 1801 he married his second wife, who died in 1836. He has left two sons and five grandchildren. To his family he was ever fondly attached, and few men in domestic life were loved more tenderly. He was gene

rous and charitable, too, and delighted in making glad the hearts of the poor; and from the beggar who met him in the street and asked alms, he turned not coldly away. Of his public charities we hardly need speak ;they will remain to consecrate his memory, long after this brief notice of his life shall have been cast aside and forgotten. Nor were his benefactions confined to that noble institution we have before mentioned, and which bears his name: the broadest views of the most generous philanthropist, could not have extended them more widely. His gold was freely bestowed to aid the spread of the gospel in heathen lands; and he gave too without ostentation, as becometh the Christian and the good man. Without that parade of godliness which ever detracts so much from the true value of the most liberal bounty, he often assisted the church at home, with heavy contributions; and by the calm and steady influence which the man who passes a long life wisely and well may at all times exercise, aided by the energies of a mind that loved the promotion of good works, he united his exertions with those of others, in advancing the cause of morality and religion, wherever his fortune or personal efforts could accomplish those objects. As he drew nearer the grave, the love he had ever borne his race seemed to grow more strongly upon him, and all the kindlier feelings of his nature were manifested with no less warmth than in the prime of manhood. With those whom disease had stricken in mind or body, he had always sympathized; and that while standing on the borders of another world, he forgot not to provide for the afflicted among his fellows, most impressively appears in the following bequest extracted from one of the codicils annexed to his last Will and Testament.

"And whereas it has long been deeply impressed on my mind, that an Insane or Lunatic Hospital, or Retreat for the Insane, should be established upon a firm and permanent basis, under an act of the Legislature, where that unhappy portion of our fellow citizens, who are by the visitation of Providence deprived of their reason, may find a safe retreat and be provided with whatever may be most conducive to their comfort, and to their restoration to a sound state of mind: therefore, for the purpose of aiding an object so desirable, and in the hope that such an establishment may soon be commenced, I do hereby set apart and give, devise and bequeath, the sum of Thirty Thousand Dollars towards the erection of an Insane or Lunatic Hospital, or Retreat for the Insane, or by whatever other name it may be called, to be located in Providence or its vicinity; and I do hereby order and direct my said executors, to pay the said sum of thirty thousand dollars in the promotion and advancement of an institution for that object, trusting, and fully confiding in my executors, that they will carefully examine, and be satisfied that the establishment is placed on a firm and legal basis; and that the payment of the above amount be made at such times and in such sums, as will best promote the desired object, and be least prejudicial to the settlement of my own estates; hoping that my sons and other friends will co-operate in the humane and benevolent design, that the benefits of the Institution may soon be realized."

This is a generous gift for a most noble purpose, and we trust no time will be lost in incorporating an institution equal in permanency and usefulness to the one contemplated by the departed donor. That it should bear his name upon its portals, to perpetuate the memory of its founder, is a matter of such bare and common justice, as well to him as to his descendants, and all those who love his name, that we need hardly say it