Mother Carey's Jacobin Chickens

Pete Kyle McCarter

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

On Saturday, April 13, 1793, John Fenno, printer of the Philadel-
phia Gazette of the United States, offered his readers a political fable
about a flock of Mother Carey's Chickens. Something more than three
years later, in 1796, Jeremy Belknap, in the second of the two letters
with which he enlarged The Foresters for its second edition, made exten-
sive use of flocks of Mother Carey's Chickens to bring his political fable
down to date. The coincidence, if it is a coincidence, is striking.¹

The piece in Fenno's paper is lively and amusing and would have
been all the more pleasing to his readers in the spring of 1793 because it
was of considerably better quality than anything he had given them for
weeks. With the only Federalist paper in the national capital, Fenno
should have had a monopoly on Federalist writing talent there, but the
recent contributions had been dull and trite. The times did not lack for
political issues tumbling over one another and keeping partisan politics
at a high temperature. But the Gazette of the United States had been
plodding along and letting its Jeffersonian rivals carry the day.

Now someone had sent Fenno an animated little satire with bite
and a touch of coarseness. People could chuckle as they recognized the
figures and caught the allusions. The piece was unsigned and its only
heading was "For the GAZETTE of the UNITED STATES." It is worth
exhuming.

The text, unchanged, follows:

The ocean has always been infested by certain ominous birds,
known to the American sailors by the name of Mother Carey's Chickens.
Previous to a storm, they often surround a ship, with the most discor-
dant accents, chattering, screaming, scolding and singing. Ill weather
and ill luck always follow. The stoutest seamen are terrified at their ap-
pearance, and no one dares to climb the shrouds, or even to handle a
rope, while they continue around the ship. Not Davy Jones, the demon
of the waters, inspires more terror than these boding chatterers. The
horror and detestation with which they are viewed, has hitherto
prevented an accurate investigation of their shape, size, and nature. But
we are informed that a great modern philosopher and politician, has
lately got a small brood of them into his possession. He finds they are
of the same species as the Parrot, and are readily taught to utter any ar-

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