To A Concealed Royalist[184]

On a Virulent Attack

"We have force to crumble you into dust, although you were as hard as rocks, adamant, or jasper." KIEN-LHI, alias JOHN TUCK, Viceroy of Canton.

When round the bark the howling tempest raves Tossed in the conflict of a thousand waves, The lubber landsmen weep, complain, and sigh, And on the pilot's skill, or heaven, rely; Lurk in their holes, astonished and aghast, Dreading the moment that must be their last. The tempest done--their terror also ceases, And up they come, and shew their shameless faces, At once feel bold, and tell the pilot, too, He did no more than they--themselves--could do! A Foe to Tyrants! one your pen restores:-- There is a Tyrant whom your soul adores: And every line you write too plainly shows, Your heart is hostile to that tyrant's foes. What, worse than folly, urged this genius dull With Churchill's wreathes to shade his leaden scull: So, midnight darkness union claims with light: So, oil and water in one mass unite:-- No more your rage in plundered verse repeat, Sink into prose--even there no safe retreat. Reed's patriot fame to distant years may last, When rancorous reptiles to the dogs are cast, Or, where oblivion spreads her weary wings, Lost in the lumber of forgotten things; And none shall ask, nor wish to know, nor care, Who--what their names--or when they lived--or where.

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."

This title first appeared in the 1809 edition. In the edition of 1795 the title was "To Shylock Ap-Shenkin, an abusive court writer."

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."

"Sneak into prose--the dunce's last retreat."--Ed. 1786.

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.

Freneau signed these lines as they appeared in the Journal "A FOE TO MALICE."