[184] During the summer of 1782 the _Freeman's Journal_ waged a bitter warfare with the _Independent Gazetteer_, a paper which had been established in Philadelphia on April 13, 1782, by Eleazer Oswald. To such extremes did this quarrel go that Oswald, defeated by the more nimble pen of his adversary, at length challenged him to a duel. The above poem marks the beginning of the poetical phase of the battle. It appeared in the _Journal_ on the 28th of August and was a reply to the following effusion published in the _Gazetteer_ four days previously:
"MR. OSWALD: The following lines are addressed to a most infamous Tyrant,... and to a noted speculator when high in office. Yours, &c., A FOE TO TYRANTS.
"Be wicked as you will, do all that's base, Proclaim yourselves the monsters of your race, Let vice and folly your dark souls divide, Be proud with meanness and be mean with pride, Deaf to the voice of faith and honour, fall From side to side, yet be of none at all: Spurn all those charities, those sacred ties, Which nature, in her bounty, good as wise, To work our safety and ensure her plan, Contriv'd to bind and rivet man to man: Lift against Virtue pow'r's oppressive rod, Betray your country, and deny your God." But candour in some future day will scan The actions of pale Joe and brazen Sam, Who're lost to virtue and all sense of shame, They've barter'd honour for some villain's name: Yet may they pass unnotic'd in the throng And, free from envy, safely sneak along; Let Clarkson tell how Joe is in disgrace And honest Jack will follow up the chase."
[185] This title first appeared in the 1809 edition. In the edition of 1795 the title was "To Shylock Ap-Shenkin, an abusive court writer."
[186] The twelve lines in quotation points in the poem by "The Foe to Tyrants" were taken, with little change, from Churchill's "Epistle to William Hogarth."
[187] "Sneak into prose--the dunce's last retreat."--_Ed. 1786._
[188] The attack of "The Foe to Tyrants" was directed mainly against General Joseph Reed, the "pale Joe" of the poem. So bitter and persistent were the attacks of "Oswald's Scribblers" that Reed, in the _Journal_ of Sept. 11, published a protest against the "set of men in this city [who] uninjured and unprovoked by me are weekly pouring forth some abuse under anonymous signatures." And early in 1783 he put forth a pamphlet entitled "Remarks on a late publication in the _Independent Gazetteer_, with a short address to the people of Pennsylvania on the many libels and slanders which have lately appeared against the author." A second edition was called for several weeks after the first issue of this pamphlet.