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A History of the Maryland Press, 1777-1790
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other states. Oswald was a leader of the Republican party which favored
the two house system. Carey, on the other hand, joined a society of
foreigners which supported the status quo. The bitter attack of Oswald
against the "Society of the Lately Adopted Sons of Pennsylvania"
in which he denounced its members as "baboons of ingratitude and ob-
jects of Pennsylvania detestation" was answered by Carey. The response
of Oswald to Carey's article included the statement that:
"Your being a cripple is your main protection against personal insults, which your oblique
insinuations would otherwise challenge."
Carey immediately composed and published The Plagi-Scurriliad: A
Hudibrastic Poem, which he dedicated to Oswald.41 The charges of
plagiarism are supported by the comparison of some of Oswald's edi-
torials with the Junius Papers and the scurrilous nature of his attacks
is emphasized. Carey's Irish temper was up and he had no fear of the
consequences of this publication. He boldly satirized Oswald's prowess
as a duelist:
" 'Ods pistols and swords,' as the man says in the play-book, he is a mere Hercules—a duel is only
a diversion to him—He has fought so many of them, that 'there is a mine of lead in his belly.'
He never thinks it worth while to cross the Delaware for one or two—he waits until ten or a dozen
are to be challenged at once, when he appoints an early hour, attacks them fresh and fasting, settles
the business in proper style, and returns to breakfast, quite composed, with a brace or two of bullets
in his body, or perhaps pinked in two or three places—'tis all one to him—he disregards such
trifles."42
He concluded the poem with the statement "that though I am a cripple,
there is a certain mode in which I would be on an equality with him,"
referring to a duel with pistols. The morning after the poem appeared,
Oswald sent his challenge which Carey accepted. The duel was held,
Carey was shot in the thigh and did not recover until eighteen months
later.43 A few days after the encounter took place Carey issued a state-
ment in which he said that Oswald "..... behaved himself as a gentle-
man—a man of honour—I with pleasure embrace the opportunity of
retracting what 1 have asserted derogatory to his character."44
40 The Plagi Scurriliad: A Hudibrastic Poem. Dedicated to Colonel Eleazer Oswald..... By Mathew Carey. Phila-
delphia. Printed And Sold By The Author. January 16. M. DCC LXXXVI. Pages: (j)—iv, (i)-xi, (12)—27, (28) —(30)
A second edition appeared with an engraved picture of Carey and containing fifty pages. The letters exchanged by Oswald
and Carey as well as letters from Washington and Lafayette were added to the second edition.
41 Thr Plagi-Scurriliad, first edition, pp. vii-viii.
42 For Carry's account of the duel and the causes of it, written almost fifty years later, see The New-England Magazine,
Vol. V (1833) pp. 491 496.
44 The Plagi Scurriliad, second edition, p. 49.
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