ON. DUELS AND DUELLING, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED, WITH A PRELIMINARY HISTORICAL ESSAY. BY LORENZO SABINE. THIRD EDITION. BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 117 WASHINGTON STREET. HARVARD COLLEGE Jan 26, 1937 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by LORENZO SABINE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY METCALF AND COMPANY. 20097 40-39 18 PREFACE. THIS page the last to be written-is the author's own. Here he may speak to his reader without restraint, and, if he will, as to a friend. The writer, in availing himself of the privilege accorded to all, would remark, in the first place, that whoever opens this volume in the expectation of finding mention of every challenge given and of every duel fought, in the United States or elsewhere, will be disappointed. The work, in its claims as a record, is sufficiently moderate. Bred to active business, and employed nearly the whole of his life in commercial or kindred pursuits, the author's leisure hours only have been devoted to books. In order to make the most of these hours, the plan of taking and filing away for use, as occasion might admit, memoranda of incidents and facts of interest, was adopted in early youth, and has been continued until the present moment. These NOTES are, then, simply the results of common and every-day reading, observation, and conversation, for a series of years, in this particular direction. As, in preparing the "American Loyalists" for the press, the author was cheered in seasons of discouragement by the reflection, that his labors would at least diminish the hate which had existed for two generations between the inhabitants of the British Colonies and those of his native country, between the losers and the winners in the Revolutionary strife, and their children, and thus hasten the period of a peaceful and permanent union so now, he would humbly cherish the belief that the influence of these tales of blood and crime will be to lessen the number of single combats between persons who may rightfully claim the appellation of gentlemen, and so do something to advance the great cause of human brotherhood. The account of a single hostile meeting, however sad the details, seldom leaves a deep and lasting impression: but, unless the author much mistakes the nature of the human mind, the effect upon the votaries of the duello · of the reading at one time, and in course, of several hundred challenges and duels, which embrace accounts of almost every imaginable form of injury and affront, and of almost every possible variety of result to the parties and to their friends and families, must be far different. Certain it is, that, but for this thought, the task now completed would never have been undertaken. There are many in New England who will object, because terms of unconditional, indiscriminate condemnation of the duellist have been withheld. With all respect, be it so. Yet let it be said in reply, that the sympathy manifested in these pages is in no case for the crime, but always for the unhappy social position of the duellist. Most persons, it is apprehended, who calmly consider the subject as it actually is, will assent to and fully appreciate the duellist's plea; namely, that, if wronged or insulted, he is required to choose between a violation of human and divine laws on the one hand, and the loss of his place in society on the other; and that of consequence, and do what he may, he falls a helpless sacrifice. While, then, there is a grave sin to condemn, there is also a feeling of commiseration to indulge. During my investigations, I have been convinced of the entire justice of the remark of the great British novelist of modern times, that "few successful duellists (if the word successful can be applied to a superiority so fatal) have beheld their dead antagonist stretched on the earth at their feet, without wishing they could redeem with their own blood that which it has been their fate to spill." The scene in the Monastery, between Sir Piercie Shafton and Halbert Glendinning, - where the passage above cited occurs, is drawn from real life: and this volume contains more than one instance in which the fallen duellist literally tendered his unharmed adversary his purse, and counselled him to fly and save himself; in which the latter "tore his hair for very sorrow, as he looked on the pale countenance of his victim"; and in which he exclaimed, in vain penitence, like Halbert, "Why did I provoke him to an issue so fatal! Would to God I had submitted to the worst insult man could receive from man, rather than be the bloody instrument of this bloody deed." Such are the general reasons that have induced the author, except in particular cases, to spare the individual man; but to spare him only that the Public Opinion, the Fashion around him and enslaving him, and which, inexorable in their demands, impose upon him alternatives so appallingly cruel, so utterly unworthy of the civilization of the age, might be assailed with the greater force. Again the author, during his researches, has been much impressed with the fact that most duels grow out of trifles; or, as Scott states it, out of "the taking of the wall, or the gentle rub of the shoulder in passing each other, or a hasty word, or a misconceived gesture." And the reader of these NOTES will find ample illustrations of the sentiment of Sir Henry Lee, that inveterate quoter of Shakespeare, and stout old adherent of the Stuarts, in Woodstock, - that "The mother of mischief is no bigger than a gnat's wing; and I have known fifty instances in my own day, when, as Will says, 'Gallants have been confronted hardily In single opposition, hand to hand,' in which, after the field was fought, no one could remember the cause of quarrel.” To assume, as may be done without violence to the general truth, that a large proportion of the cartels are given for trivial |