66 66 - : circumstance in the columns of a newspaper: a brother, solicitous for the honor of a sister who boarded at a house in which a man lived in open adultery with the wife of another, was killed for his "impertinent interference":· — a nobleman addressed an intimate friend by a nickname, as he had done for years, gave offence, was called out, and slain :- a gentleman, as was imagined," cast an "impertinent look " towards one of his associates in a ball-room, and satisfied the ideal wrong with his life : an earl and an officer in the army fought about debt incurred at the gaming-table: - two barristers met who had never spoken in their lives, the challenged party accepting the call solely because public sentiment would not allow him to decline without disgrace: two persons, who at the bar and elsewhere obtained enviable distinction, engaged in a duel upon the issue, whether "Ireland was a nation easily roused and easily appeased": a celebrated traveller who listened to, and endeavored to reconcile, a quarrel between two strangers whom he accidentally met, relieved himself from difficulty only by measuring swords with one of them: a member of a city government, offended with a public speaker who said the corporation was a beggarly corporation," would not listen to explanation, insisted upon a meeting, was gratified, and was a victim to his sensibility: statesmen, who subsequently became prime-ministers, placed themselves on the roll of duellists for a cause which, in the judgment of their friends, involved the honor of neither, and which exposed both to censure: the manner of saying, “Yes, I do," in answer to a question, was the sole offence which cost one officer his life in a duel, and the survivor his life upon a gallows : - a gallant marquis challenged a noble earl for general but disrespectful mention of his country: a naval officer who captured an enemy's fleet met one who had served under him, 'entirely," he said, as an atonement for the violated rules of the service": a witness in a court of justice gave testimony which offended a party in interest, and was slain on the " field of honor": the dog of an officer of rank who was the pride of the army, and the dog of a captain in the navy who had proved his courage in many hard-fought battles, snarled and growled, and so the two gentlemen, to settle the quarrel between their curs, quarrelled themselves, and would not be appeased until one of them fell by the hand of the other: a gentleman remarked that "he believed an associate had "a personal pique against him," was challenged, and slew his adversary:-two military 66 66 - two DISGRACEFUL AND RIDICULOUS DUELS. 37 men engaged in mortal combat, because a third person thought he could recall some "light words" which one of them had spoken against his fellow :- and last of all, and more absurd than all, an aid of the illustrious Commander-in-chief challenged and fought the general second in rank in the army of the Revolution, upon no difference of his own, but simply — solely — to prove to the generation to which they belonged, and to posterity, that Washington as an officer was equal to the station which he filled, and as a private gentleman was entitled to consideration and respect! DISGRACEFUL AND RIDICULOUS DUELS. An agreement to fight to the death, and a challenge from a father to a son, or the converse, were denounced three centuries ago, as disgraceful to knighthood. To fight with one loaded and one empty-pistol, at one pace distance, the parties drawing lots for a choice between the weapons; to kiss the lips of a person mortally ill of an infectious disease, instead of meeting death in the field; to fight naked, or in the lower garments only; to fight when principals, or seconds, or both, are drunk; to curse and swear on the ground, or taunt an antagonist with illegitimacy, or domestic or pecuniary misfortune; to fight with pistols overlapping each other; to prepare a sumptuous feast, and invite friends far and near to partake of it, at the close of a combat in which it has been resolved that the adverse party shall be slain; to fight in utter darkness, whether in the open air, or in a room, or with lamps or lanterns; to purposely meet in a lone spot, where it is known that no assistance can be obtained; to reject the opinion of friends to whom an affair has been intrusted; to insist upon fighting after the aggressor has made usual, and in the judgment of seconds satisfactory atonement, are all practices equally disgraceful to knighthood, and, though discountenanced by true gentlemen, are not wholly unknown in modern duelling. On the other hand, we have duels which excite a smile; as, for example, that between Sir Jonah Barrington and Richard Daly, and that between Somerset Butler and Peter Burrowes. Nor are mock-combats at the present day of rare occurrence, either in the British Isles or in America. It was stated by a member of Parliament, at a vast assemblage of the friends of peace, in 1853, that, from facts in his possession, he had not the least reason to doubt that the "practice had become common for the seconds to load the pistols of the principals with an article which deceives the eye, but which, when the ram-rod is used, is pressed to pieces and into a sort of dust. Perhaps the honorable member, in employing the term "common," overstated the exact truth, but there cannot be a doubt, that friends sometimes solemnly arrange for bloodless contests. Omitting details, and the mention of particular cases, I will barely add, that several wellauthenticated accounts are before me, and that one instance — ridiculous to the last degree- occurred under my own personal observation, between a British officer and a gentleman who is now in holy orders. CHAPTER VII. OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN. - PUBLIC SENTIMENT. OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN. DUELLING is not without its advocates, both on the ground of expediency and of right. But it is to be remarked, that very many men of distinguished consideration utter their approval in terms of qualification and with conditions. Addison and Steele were, I think, personally opposed to the custom, and most readers of the Spectator and Tatler will agree with me in the conclusion; but yet, in a joint essay in the latter paper, they state that, as the practice had "become a law," they did not "know how a gentleman could avoid a duel, if he were provoked to it." Oglethorpe, the founder of the State of Georgia, and a military officer of great merit, in reply to a question upon the subject, said, "Undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor" but we find that he was slow to take offence, and that, during a long life of public service, no occasion occurred which required him to defend his honor." Adam Ferguson, Professor of Morals in the University of Edinburgh, allows that a duel may be innocently fought in certain cases, but calls them "exceptions" to the common rule; and illustrates his views by the extreme wrongs of " a woman who is forcibly attacked in her chastity," or of " a man who is put to the trial of personal estimation or honor," and whose injuries "the utmost power of the magistrate : 66 cannot afterward repair." Lord Kaimes was unable to discover any crime on either side in a duel when no "satisfaction," or proper satisfaction," is offered to an affronted party, on the one hand, and when the " person who gave the affront has offered what he thinks full satisfaction," on the other; but, as will be admitted on a moment's reflection, a combat under such circumstances can rarely take place. Sir James Mackintosh remarks, that "duelling is among us a disputed case, though the improvement of manners has rendered it so much more infrequent, that it is likely in time to lose its support from opinion"; and allowing us at least to infer, that the class of gentlemen with whom he mingled were divided in sentiment, while he himself belonged to the party that hoped for an entire abolition of it. The views of Dr. Johnson are far less equivocal than either of the preceding writers, since, according to Boswell, he defended duelling in repeated conversations. It has been contended that the learned critic and lexicographer did not utter his real convictions, but talked to his listeners to please, and as the humor moved him at the moment. With all deference, I shall take no pains to ascertain whether his sober thought was in agreement with his words, or the converse; for I have frankly to declare, that, upon a question of morals, I entertain no respect whatever for the opinion of the man, who, in answer to the memorable Resolutions and Address of the Continental Congress of 1775, wrote that infamous tract, "Taxation no Tyranny." We turn to other eminent personages who have borne testimony against the custom. Passing the flippant speech of Dean Swift, that all duellists are "fools," we may pause in admiration at the conduct of the historian Gibbon, who, when informed that two of his friends had agreed to repair to the field, interposed, on the noble principle that the acknowledgment of a real fault is never injurious to one's honor, and that an offender who offers an apology or explanation is a true gentleman; and succeeded in adjusting the difficulty between them. Franklin, compressing the whole argument into a single expression, said that " A DUEL DECIDES NOTHING," and that a person appealing to it "makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner." Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, already mentioned as one of the great statesmen of the United States, after the fall of Hamilton, endeavored to induce the Cincinnati of the different States, in a body, to speak their "abhorrence of the practice," and to deter mine "on no account either to send or accept a challenge," as the best means to "abolish it throughout the Union"; and not content with this, he drafted and circulated in his own State a memorial to the Legislature for the passage of a restraining statute, and invoked the clergy of South Carolina, as a particular favor, at some convenient early day, to preach a sermon on the sin and folly of duelling." 66 The notes of similar testimony before me, stated in the briefest form, would fill a long chapter; but a proposition to which most reasonable men assent, needs only to be suggested. I cannot forbear, however, in concluding the topic, to ask the reader's attention to the declarations of Hamilton, of Graham, Hillas, Decatur, and Thomas, which are to be found in the appropriate places, as the solemn averments of men who, while they could not boast, with the great Earl of Huntly, that "they never drew a sword in their own quarrel," yet went to their doom the victims of circumstances which, unfortunately, they did not dare to resist, at the loss of their professional and social position. Nor can I forbear to mention, that, whatever the example and opinion of Mr. Clay at one period of his life, we have the sentiment of his old age, in the remark in the Senate, that "no man would be happier than himself to see the whole barbarous system for ever eradicated." Nor would it be just to other members of the Senate to forget the fact, that, in 1838, the bill to prevent and punish duelling in the District of Columbia passed that body with a single dissenting vote; or just to the memory of the late President Taylor to omit to record his emphatic refusal to restore two officers of the Navy who had been dismissed the service for an offence under the duello, accompanied with the statement to his Cabinet, that he had served in the Army forty years without fighting, that duels were unnecessary, that he would discountenance them on every occasion, and that "he would have no duelling men about him if he could help it." Nor ought I to overlook the hopeful circumstance, that, in 1849, a Professor of Law in Kentucky, in his valedictory address to a graduating class, denounced the practice in the strongest terms, as rude and coarse, and full of horrid crime"; and least of all should I fail to remember the lofty stand of Mr. Rhett, who, in 1852, in the Senate of the United States, in answer to the defiance of a Senator from another State, avowed that he was a member of a Christian church, that he would not dishonor his religious profession by going to the field to avenge an insult, that "he feared 66 |