rum, and molasses, there was an increase in the exports of sugar of 60,000 boxes, and that too without including December. We account for this apparent anomaly by assuming that the difference of tonnage is less than the diference in the number of vessels; and although we have no documents at hand to prove it, we are confident this decrease in number has been thus compensated by the larger size and increased tonnage of the vessels which have done our carrying trade for the year 1848.

Art. IV. MERCANTILE BIOGRAPHY.

THE LATE JONATHAN GOODHUE.

FEW men have been taken from the ranks of life and usefulness, in this community, whose removal has occasioned so deep a sensation as was elicited by the death of the late Mr. Goodhue. It was not that he had sought for popularity, or had aimed at a commanding influence. A constitutional delicacy of feeling had rather led him to shun notoriety, and to shrink instinctively from places which could give him prominence. The strong sensation, then, which was manifested at his death, was but the spontaneous expression of the esteem and affection of the community in which, for so many years, he had lived and acted. In a widely extended intercourse, running through a long and active life, he had left the impress of his character on the minds and hearts of thousands who had known him and who had loved him. He had appeared among them not only as an upright man and an honorable merchant, but as a fellow-being entering warmly into their feelings and anxious for their wellfare. This ready flowing spirit of sympathy and kindness was strongly developed in Mr. Goodhue's character, and was the more impressive from his frank and lively manner, and the strong language with which he gave utterance to his feelings. No one could converse with him without perceiving it. It was spontaneous, and needed only the presence of a proper object to show itself distinctly and fully. There was, indeed, a transparency of character in Mr. Goodhue throughout, which left no doubt with any who conversed with him as to his principles and feelings.

The public demonstrations of sorrow on the occasion of his death were in keeping with the feeling which pervaded the community. On the morning in which his death was announced, the colors of the shipping in the harbor were displayed at half mast. At a special meeting of the Chamber of Commerce and merchants of New York, convened on the occasion, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted :

"Resolved, That the Chamber of Commerce, and other merchants of New York, representing the unanimous sense of this body, record the death of Jonathan Goodhue, now no more of earth, with the sincerest grief, and with the highest respect for his virtues.

"Resolved, That as a merchant, his enterprise, his systematic attention to business, his unvarying good faith and fidelity, his unspotted honor and unstained integrity, entitle him to a lasting good name in the commercial annals of our country.

"Resolved, That we equally declare our high esteem for his virtues as a man, for his kindness of heart, his liberality in useful public enterprises, and his activity in works of charity; for his modesty, and also for his elevated Christian spirit, and for the unostentatious simplicity and blameless purity of his private life.

"Resolved, That, in common with the whole commercial community of this country, by whom he has been so long known and esteemed, we respectfully tender our sympathy to his mourning relatives and friends, and that these resolutions be communicated to them as a last mark of our respect."

The members of the Mercantile Library Association, at a meeting convened on the occasion, adopted resolutions expressive of their sympathy, and of their high estimation of his character and example.

The public journals of the day were full and warm in their expressions of sympathy and respect to the memory of one who had enjoyed so largely the esteem and affection of all who knew him.

JONATHAN GOODHUE was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 21st of June, 1783, and at his decease had attained the age of sixty-five years. His father was the Hon. Benjamin Goodhue, who received the high testimony of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens by being elected a member of the United States Senate for two successive terms. The subject of this memoir was educated at the grammar school of his native place, and his mind was thus prepared for the more varied acquisition of knowledge which he afterwards derived from extensive reading and intercourse with the world. Among his school-mates and the associates of his early life were many who became distinguished as merchants, or in the learned professions, and some who rose to eminence in public life.

As he had a strong mind, intent upon the acquisition of knowledge, and never yielded to indolence or vicious indulgences, he had the better opportunity for mental improvement, and in this respect few men have more faithfully redeemed their time.

In the year 1798, at the age of fifteen, he entered the counting-room of the Hon. John Norris, of Salem, a merchant of wealth and enterprise, extensively engaged in the trade of Europe and the East Indies. Mr. Norris was a man of great moral worth, distinguished for his piety, benevolence, and strict regard to truth. Such an example is at all times a blessing to the world, and it was not lost in its influence upon his young apprentice. After a few years spent in the counting-room, Mr. Goodhue received a mark of confidence not unusual in those days, in being sent abroad as supercargo in the employment of Mr. Norris.

His first voyage was to Aden, in Arabia, commencing in December, 1803, and terminating in July, 1805, in which he touched at the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France. He remained six months at Aden on this occasion, and was much interested in his intercourse with the Mohammedans in that region. His second voyage was to Calcutta, commencing in October, 1805, and terminating in October, 1806. Here again he was much interested in his intercourse with the Banians and natives of India, and he was led, by his observations at this early period of his life, to form a habit of making liberal allowances for the defects and imperfections of those who had been born and brought up under a more obscure light than that which he had enjoyed.

Mr. Goodhue removed to New York in November, 1807. In commencing his commercial career he still enjoyed the patronage of his early friend, Mr. Norris. By the purity of his character, his intelligence, and his faithful devotedness to his interests, he had gained his lasting esteem and confidence. It was also his singular good fortune to enjoy the countenance and patronage of the Hon. William Gray, of Boston, so well known for his wealth and enterprise, and so distinguished in the commercial history of this country.

The late Joseph Peabody, of Salem, who was among the most wealthy and eminent merchants of his day, was also among his patrons. This was an auspicious beginning, and few men in the outset of life have, in the way of patronage, been so highly favored. It was, however, an advantage which he could not have enjoyed if he had not established a character which gave him a title to their confidence and esteem.

He was equally happy, on his arrival at New York, in being recommended to gentlemen of leading influence and respectability, by whom he was taken by the hand and introduced at once to the most select society. Among his warm friends was the late Hon. Oliver Wolcott, then engaged in commercial pursuits, and the late Archibald Gracie. General Matthew Clarkson was also among his early and most valued friends, and Mr. Goodhue afterwards became connected with his family by the marriage of his daughter. He always cherished a grateful sense of the kindness of his early patrons, and always spoke of them with respect and affection until the close of his life. He was never elated by the many flattering attentions which he received on his first introduction to his new place of residence, and no man has ever deported himself with more modesty in a career in which there has been so much which might have fostered vanity in a mind differently constituted.

The long embargo, and subsequent war with England, checked for a while the full success of Mr. Goodhue's mercantile career. He hailed the return of peace with great delight, and on the receipt of the intelligence dispatched an express to Boston, with instructions to proclaim aloud the glad tidings in every town on the route. The Bostonians received the messenger with joy, and did not allow him to return without a reward. This act was characteristic of Mr. Goodhue. It might have occurred to other minds to have availed of this occasion for the purpose of private speculation; but he was absorbed by the one thought of the paramount importance of this great event as a public blessing.

After the peace of 1814, the relations of Mr. Goodhue's mercantile firm became, by degrees, more widely extended through all the commercial parts of Europe, the East Indies, Mexico, and South America. In the course of his long commercial life he became extensively acquainted with the numerous foreigners who visited America, many of whom enjoyed his hospitality; and the warm expressions of regard which have been received from them since his death was announced, are among the most precious memorials of his family and friends.

Mr. Goodhue's commercial life extended through an interval of time fraught with momentous events, affecting deeply the position and circumstances of commercial men. The long embargo; the war with England which followed it; the various changes in the Bank of the United States, and final overthrow of that institution; the various alterations of the tariff, and the successive contractions and expansions of the currency consequent upon these events, occasioning heavy disappointments and losses to all the community, followed in quick succession. It was no small felicity to have survived these changes, and to have maintained throughout a high credit and unsullied reputation.

We have alluded to the ready flowing sympathy and fellow feeling which marked Mr. Goodhue's character. It was especially manifested towards those in dependent situations and in the more humble walks of life. No laboring man, however low his condition, could be engaged in his service without perceiving that he had a considerate regard for his feelings and for his rights.

No domestic ever lived in his family without being impressed by his condescension and kindness. This feeling made him reluctant to part with those who had faithfully served him, and few men have ever made so few changes in those who have held subordinate situations under them. The cartman who, on his first arrival in New York, took his baggage to his lodgings, was employed by him until old age obliged him to retire from active life. A principal book-keeper, well worthy of his confidence and esteem, remained with him for fifteen years, and then withdrew merely because he wished to change his mode of life. A confidential counting-room porter, after being in his service for twenty-five years, still holds his place in the house of Goodhue & Co. These incidents, not important in themselves, are worthy of record as characteristic of the man, and they furnish an example of a trait of character not generally sufficiently cultivated. The busy, prosperous community are too apt to overlook the feelings and rights of those who are dependent upon them; and are too insensible to the beneficial influence which, by a proper sympathy and care, they can exert over them.

The incidents of private life, even in the case of one who occupies a prominent and important place in society, do not afford much matter of general interest. We shall therefore, in the remainder of this article, pass to a brief sketch of the character of Mr. Goodhue.

He was a man of clear, and strong, and inquisitive mind, well informed by extensive reading and a large intercourse with men of intelligence. In politics he was a Federalist of the old school, steady and unwavering through all the momentous changes of the times in which he lived. He was always the warm advocate of free trade-ever ready to give his influence to measures which could promote it. He felt a deep and lively interest in the progress of improvement, and looked forward with cheerful, ardent hopes to the gradual melioration of the human family in their condition; but he dreaded revolution as fraught with violence and often ending in defeat. His hopes rested on the gradual and effective influence of a more general diffusion of knowledge and civilization.

In religion he was the invariable and unyielding advocate of the rights of conscience, entirely opposed to oppression and domination under whatever name they might be called. He had a strong affection for the pure and upright, of whatever religious sect they might be; an uncompromising abhorrence of hypocrisy and false pretension, in whatever garb they might show themselves. Few men had a more sacred regard for truth-a deeper sense of accountability. No man had a more profound reverence for the Great Supreme. The records which he has left show that he had calmly contemplated the approach of death long before it took him from the world. The call was sudden, but it did not take him by surprise. His character is so truly and ably portrayed in the discourse of the Rev. Mr. Bellows, delivered on the occasion of his death, that we close this article with a few extracts from it.

In a community like ours, there is especial danger that the Christian standard will decline, and with it the confidence of the public in the reality of Christian faith and virtue. We live confessedly in the midst of great temptations and seductions. There is nothing, perhaps, concerning which men doubt each other more than in regard to their power to withstand the temptation of money. That "every man has his price," is a received maxim of terrible import, whose practical disproof concerns the interests, and even the credibility of the gospel, more than tongue can tell. It is to this "trial by gold," that we are called in this commer

cial metropolis: a trial more to be dreaded than the old trial by fire. Amid the competitions and collisions of mercantile enterprise, pressed by the necessity and the difficulty of speedily succeeding, in order to maintain the expensive position here assumed; surrounded by examples of crowds, whose confessed and only object is accumulation; supported in lax practices by the maxims of the careless; tempted now by the glittering prizes of rapid success, and then by the imminent perils of sudden failure; excited by the triumphant speculations of the adventurous, and dazzled by the social splendors of the prosperous; conversant all the day long, for at least six days in the week, with the plans and projects, the conversation and spirit of money-making, what wonder is it, that riches come to stand for the principal thing, and that the laws and spirit of Christian virtue are so often found to be withes of straw in the fires of worldly ambition and business enterprise?

What we particularly need, then, is the example of men who are thrown into the hottest part of this furnace, and yet come out unscathed! Men who enter into the arena of business, seek its rewards, wrestle with its competitors, experience its temptations, taste its disappointments and its successes, its anxieties, and its gratifications; pass through its crises of panic, and of bubble-prosperity, and yet through all, uphold a character and reputation for unspotted honor and integrity, for equanimity and moderation, and for qualities of mind and heart, to which worldly success is manifestly and completely subordinated. The world may well be suspicious of an untried virtue; of the worth of an integrity which sustains itself in seclusion, and never measures its strength with the temptations of life; of a professional goodness, which is hedged about by the restrictions of public opinion; of a talking piety, that mistakes the glow of beautiful and exalted sentiments for the earnestness and vigor of moral principle; of the graces which merely reflect the circumstances that surround them; as, for instance, the humility of the low in station, the amiableness of those whose natural temperament is equable, the self-control of the unimpassioned, or moderation of desires in those who are without opportunity or hope of advancement. What we need to confirm our faith in virtue, to reprove and stimulate our consciences, is to see the triumph of tempted integrity, the victory of a spirit that feels the force of the passions and desires that agitate our own hearts, and yet controls them; that is subjected to our own trying circumstances, and turns them to the account of goodness.

It is no uncommon thing to hear men, as it were, fortifying their own moral resolution by assailing the ordinary objects of human desire; denying the desirableness of fortune; charging the necessary principles on which business is conducted with intrinsic immorality, and attributing to wealth itself all the evils which come from the passionate "love of money." When these words proceed from the mouths of the unsuccessful, or from those withdrawn from the walks of trade, they indicate a very suspicious kind of past experience, and a very doubtful sort of unworldliness. The truth is, the business of this world must be carried on, and there must be commercial centers, where wealth, with all its responsibilities, perils and advantages, will be concentrated. Merchants, in the largest use of that word, are a necessary and most important class-a fixed, indispensable, and permanent class in the divisions of society. There is no prospect whatsoever that the pressure of care, the competitions of trade, the increase of wealth, or the growth of private fortunes, will diminish in a place like this. Just here, this work which you are doing is to be done-will remain to be done! and you and your successors will be subjected to whatsoever dangers and disadvantages to the moral nature belong to it. It by no means follows because a post is dangerous that it is to be deserted, or that it is wrong to occupy it! It by no means is true that things are unimportant or to be dispensed with, because they are morally perilous. Commerce is dangerous precisely because of the magnitude of the interests involved in it. Money is "perilous stuff," just because it is the representative of all other physical and of much intellectual and moral value. This community of business interests and business men is a dangerous and difficult place to dwell in, because those exclusively occupied in dealing with that, which most nearly and