asy to receive admonitions, and reform my errors, I
thought fit to consult this learned board on the subject. Upon proposing
some doubts, and desiring their assistance, a very hopeful young
gentleman, my relation, who is to be called to the bar within a year and
a half at farthest, told me, that he had ever since I first mentioned
duelling turned his head that way; and that he was principally moved
thereto, by reason that he thought to follow the circuits in the North
of England and South of Scotland, and to reside mostly at his own estate
at Landbadernawz[312] in Cardiganshire. The northern Britons and
southern Scots are a warm people, and the Welsh a nation of gentlemen;
so that it behoved him to understand well the science of quarrelling.
The young gentleman proceeded admirably well, and gave the board an
account, that he had read Fitzherbert's "Grand Abridgment,"[313] and had
found, that duelling is a very ancient part of the law: for when a man
is sued, be it for his life or his land, the person that joins the
issue, whether plaintiff or defendant, may put the trial upon the duel.
Further he argued, under favour of the court, that when the issue is
joined by the duel in treason or other capital crimes, the parties
accused and accuser must fight in their own proper persons: but if the
dispute be for lands, you may hire a champion at
Hockley-in-the-Hole,[314] for anywhere else. This part of the law we had
from the Saxons; and they had it, as also the trial by ordeal, from the
Laplanders.[315] "It is indeed agreed," said he, "the Southern and
Eastern nations never knew anything of it; for though the ancient Romans
would scold, and call names filthily, yet there is not an example of a
challenge that ever passed amongst them." His quoting the Eastern
nations, put another gentleman in mind of an account he had from a
boatswain of an East Indiaman; which was, that a Chinese had tricked and
bubbled him, and that when he came to demand satisfaction the next
morning, and like a true tar of honour called him "Son of a whore,"
"Liar," "Dog," and other rough appellatives used by persons conversant
with winds and waves; the Chinese, with great tranquillity, desired him
not to come aboard fasting, nor put himself in a heat, for it would
prejudice his health. Thus the East knows nothing of this gallantry.
There sat at the left of the table a person of a venerable aspect, who
asserted, that half the impositions which are put upon the