TOTNES, GEORGE CAREW, or CAREY, EARL or 1629), English politician and writer, son of Dr. George Carew, dean of Windsor, and Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Harvey, was born on May 29, 1555, and was educated at Broadgates Hall, Oxford, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1588. After holding various military and diplomatic appointments he accompanied Essex in the expedition to Cadiz in 1596 and to the Azores in 1597. In 1598 he attended Sir Robert Cecil, the ambassador, to France. He was appointed treasurer at war to Essex in Ireland in March 1599, and on the latter's sudden departure in September of the same year, Carew became first a lord justice, and in 160o, president of Munster, where his vigorous measures enabled the new lord deputy, Lord Mountjoy, to suppress the rebellion. He returned to England in 1603 and was well received by James I., ho gave him many honours. In 1610 he revisited Ireland to re port on the state of the country; and in 1618 pleaded in vain for his friend Sir Walter Raleigh. He received his earldom in 1626.
He died on March 27, 1629, leaving no issue. Besides his fame as president of Munster, Carew had a considerable reputation as an antiquary.
Carew made large collections of materials relating to Irish history and pedigrees, which he left to his secretary, Sir Thomas Stafford, reputed on scanty evidence to be his natural son ; while some portion has disappeared, 39 volumes after coming into Laud's possession are now at Lambeth, and 4 volumes in the Bodleian library. A calendar of the former is included in the State Papers series edited by J. S.
Brewer and W. Bullen. His correspondence from Munster with Sir Robert Cecil was edited in 1864 by Sir John Maclean, for the Camden Society, and his letters to Sir Thomas Roe (1615-17) in 186o. Other letters or papers are in the Record Office ; among the mss. at the British Museum and calendared in the Hist. MSS. Com. Series, Marquess of Salisbury's MSS.