With the success of the Pennsylvania Evening Herald, Eleazer Oswald attacked Carey’s support of immigrants and aliens.
Carey ran a series of articles in the Herald asserting that immigration benefited the new republic, but that America was a melting pot. Foreigners needed to assume an American identity. He advocated a fund to encourage foreigners to come to the United States. He praised a society in Maryland for German immigrants and suggested a similar society for the Scots and Irish in Philadelphia.
A letter published in the Herald, probably written by Carey, “A Friend to Equality of Freedom and Learning in Pennsylvania,” proposed a school to teach Germans English. Germans represented one-third of Pennsylvania’s population. Their native language hindered them from taking part in Pennsylvania politics.[1]
This viewpoint was consistent with Carey’s nationalism throughout his life. He distained factionalism. The United States had a duty to foreigners to protect, educate and grant them citizenship. The result, he argued, was an educated, enlightened state of united citizens.[2]
Carey’s opinions provoked Oswald, a staunch advocate of native control of America’s new government. He did not want offices involving profit or trust to be given to anyone of foreign birth.[3]
Oswald’s attack on Carey was a broad-based assault on immigrants and their participation in politics. That included the Constitutionalist Party, a combination of western Pennsylvania Ulster radicals allied artisans and shopkeepers in Philadelphia. Carey had joined a group of “newly adopted sons” but he did not consider himself a Constitutionalist. They had blocked the re-charter of the Bank of North America. He supported the Republican-Federalist Party in Philadelphia, favoring a strong central government and a national bank.[4]
At first, Carey and Oswald argued about the role and character of immigrants and native-born Americans. Then the fight escalated. Oswald claimed that Carey had incited a riot of radicals in the Pennsylvania Assembly. Carey ably defended himself against Oswald’s accusations. Oswald was no stranger to controversy. His invectives had led him there before. Oswald crossed the Rubicon. Carey’s “crooked politics” he wrote, “are corresponsive to the deformity of [his] person,” referring to Carey’s escape from Dublin dressed as a woman, speculating on how Carey disguised his “cloven” foot.[5]
Deeply offended, Carey retaliated with a biting attack on Oswald, a satirical poem, the Plagi-Scurriliad. Oswald challenged Carey to a duel. Carey felt honor-bound to respond. Oswald offered to cancel the duel but Carey refused
“Your being a cripple is your main protection against personal insults, which your oblique insinuations would otherwise challenge.” [6]
Eleazer Oswald
“…if I displayed the white feather, I would nevermore see Philadelphia.” [7]
Mathew Carey
Oswald and Carey faced off at ten paces near Camden, New Jersey on January 18, 1786. Oswald, a former soldier, was an accomplished marksman. Carey was not. Oswald delivered a ball to Carey’s thigh just above his knee of his leg with the deformed foot. The wound worsened his pronounced limp, and Carey feared his leg would be amputated.[8] Oswald walked away from the duel uninjured. As Carey took aim, he thought of Oswald as the father of six and, purposely missed his target.[9]
Carey’s friends dressed his wound, carrying him back to his bed in Philadelphia. He carelessly neglected his injury, hobbling around Philadelphia on crutches for fifteen months. After the duel, Carey withdrew his accusations against Oswald, and Oswald responded in kind.[10]
Colonel Eleazer Oswald (1755-1795) was a colonel in the America Revolution and an accomplished marksman. He challenged Carey to a duel, wounding the brash young Irishman in the leg.
BECOMING AMERICAN | The Columbian Magazine
[1] Edward C. Carter II, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey Nationalist, 1760-1814” Bryn Mawr College PhD Dissertation, 1962, 63.
[2] Carter, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 63.
[3] Carter, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 63.
[4] Carter, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 62.
[5] Carter, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 65-6.
[6] Mathew Carey, Autobiography (Brooklyn: Research Classics, 1942) 13.
[7] Carey, Autobiography, 14.
[8] James N. Green, “’I was always dispos’d, to be serviceable to you, tho’ it seems I was once unlucky:’ Mathew Carey’s Relationship with Benjamin Franklin,” Early American Studies, V. 11 N. 3 (Fall, 2013) 551.
[9] Carter, “The Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 68.
[10] Carter, “The Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 68.