Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 2 (of 3)

Rule 2

None can either advance or retreat, if the ground be measured. If no ground be measured, either party may advance at his pleasure, even to touch muzzle; but neither can advance on his adversary after the fire, unless the adversary step forward on him.

N.B. The seconds on both sides stand responsible for this last rule being strictly observed, bad cases having accrued from neglect of it.

These rules and resolutions of the “Fire-eaters” and “Knights of Tara” were the more deeply impressed on my mind, from my having run a great chance of losing my life, when a member of the university, in consequence of the strict observance of one of them. A young gentleman of Galway, Mr. Richard Daly, then a Templar, had the greatest predilection for single combat of any person (not a society fire-eater) I ever recollect: he had fought sixteen duels in the space of two years; three with swords and thirteen with pistols; – yet, with so little skill or so much good fortune, that not a wound worth mentioning occurred in the course of the whole. This gentleman was called to the Bar; figured afterwards for many years as patentee of the Theatre Royal, Dublin; and had the credit of first introducing that superior woman and actress, Mrs. Jordan, when Miss Francis, on the Dublin boards.

I was surprised one winter’s evening by receiving a written challenge, in the nature of an invitation, from Mr. Daly, to fight him early the ensuing morning. I never had spoken a word to him in my life, and scarcely of him, and no possible cause of quarrel that I could guess existed between us: however, it being then a decided opinion that a first overture of that nature could never be declined, I accepted the invitation without any inquiry; writing, in reply, that as to place, I chose the field of Donnybrook fair as the fittest spot for all sorts of encounters. I had then to look out for a second, and resorted to a person with whom I was very intimate, and who, as he was a curious character, may be worth noticing. He was brother to the unfortunate Sir Edward Crosby, Bart., who was murdered by a court-martial at Carlow, May, 1798. My friend was afterward called “Balloon Crosby,” being the first aeronaut who constructed an Hibernian balloon, and ventured to take a journey into the sky from Ireland (from Ranelagh Gardens).7

Crosby was of immense stature, being near six feet three inches high: he had a comely-looking, fat, ruddy face, and was, beyond comparison, the most ingenious mechanic I ever knew. He had a smattering of all sciences, and there was scarcely an art or trade of which he had not some practical knowledge. His chambers at college were like a general workshop for all kinds of artisans: he was very good tempered, exceedingly strong, and as brave as a lion – but as dogged as a mule: nothing could change a resolution of his when once made; and nothing could check or resist his perseverance to carry it into execution. He highly approved of my promptness in accepting Daly’s invitation; but I told him that I unluckily had no pistols, and did not know where to procure any against the next morning. This puzzled him: but on recollection, he said he had no complete pistols neither; but he had some old locks, barrels, and stocks, which, as they did not originally belong to each other, he should find it very difficult to make any thing of: nevertheless, he would fall to work directly. He kept me up till late at night in his chambers to help him in filing the old locks and barrels, and endeavouring to patch up two or three of them so as to go off and answer that individual job. Various trials were made: much filing, drilling, and scouring were necessary. However, by two o’clock in the morning we had completed three entire pistols, which, though certainly of various lengths and of the most ludicrous workmanship, struck their fire right well, and that was all we wanted of them, —symmetry (as he remarked) being of no great value upon these occasions.

It was before seven o’clock on the 20th of March, with a cold wind and a sleety atmosphere, that we set out on foot for the field of Donnybrook fair, after having taken some good chocolate and a plentiful draught of cherry-brandy, to keep the cold wind out. On arriving, we saw my antagonist and his friend (Jack Patterson, nephew to the chief justice) already on the ground. I shall never forget Daly’s figure. He was a very fine-looking young fellow, but with such a squint that it was totally impossible to say what he looked at, except his nose, of which he never lost sight. His dress (they had come in a coach) made me ashamed of my own: he wore a pea-green coat; a large tucker with a diamond brooch stuck in it; a three-cocked hat with a gold button-loop and tassels, and silk stockings; and a couteau-de-chasse hung gracefully dangling from his thigh. In fact, he looked as if already standing in a state of triumph, after having vanquished and trampled on his antagonist. I did not half like his steady position, showy surface, and mysterious squint; and I certainly would rather have exchanged two shots with his slovenly friend, Jack Patterson, than one with so magnificent and overbearing an adversary.

My friend Crosby, without any sort of salutation or prologue, immediately cried out “Ground, gentlemen! ground – ground! come, d – n measurement, to work!” and placing me on his selected spot, whispered into my ear “Medio tutissimus ibis: never look at the head or the heels: hip the maccaroni! the hip for ever, my boy! hip, hip!” – when my antagonist’s second, advancing and accosting mine, said, Mr. Daly could not think of going any further with the business; that he found it was totally a mistake on his part, originating through misrepresentation, and that he begged to say he was extremely sorry for having given Mr. Barrington and his friend the trouble of coming out, hoping they would excuse it and shake hands with him. To this arrangement I certainly had no sort of objection; but Crosby, without hesitation, said, “We cannot do that yet sir: I’ll show you we can’t: (taking a little manuscript book out of his breeches pocket,) there’s the rules! – look at that, sir,” continued he, “see No. 7.: – ‘No apology can be received after the parties meet, without a fire.’ You see, there’s the rule,” pursued Crosby, with infinite self-satisfaction; “and a young man on his first blood cannot break rule, particularly with a gentleman so used to the sport as Mr. Daly. Come, gentlemen, proceed! proceed!”

Daly appeared much displeased, but took his ground, without speaking a word, about nine paces from me. He presented his pistol instantly, but gave me most gallantly a full front.

It being, as Crosby said, my first blood, I lost no time, but let fly without a single second of delay, and without taking aim: Daly staggered back two or three steps; put his hand to his breast; cried, “I’m hit, sir!” and did not fire. Crosby gave me a slap on the back which staggered me, and a squeeze of the hand which nearly crushed my fingers. We got round him: his waistcoat was opened, and a black spot, about the size of a crown-piece, with a little blood, appeared directly on his breast-bone. I was greatly shocked: fortunately, however, the ball had not penetrated; but his brooch had been broken, and a piece of the setting was sticking fast in the bone. Crosby stamped, cursed the damp powder or under-loading, and calmly pulled out the brooch: Daly said not a word; put his cambric handkerchief doubled to his breast, and bowed. I returned the salute, extremely glad to get out of the scrape, and so we parted without conversation or ceremony; save that when I expressed my wish to know the cause of his challenging me, Daly replied that he would now give no such explanation, and his friend then produced his book of rules, quoting No. 8.: – “If a party challenged accept the challenge without asking the reason of it, the challenger is never bound to divulge it afterward.”

My friend Crosby, as I have mentioned, subsequently attempted to go off from Dublin to England in a balloon of his own making, and dropped between Dublin and Holyhead into the sea, but was saved. The poor fellow some time after went abroad, and was supposed to have died far too early for friendship, – which he was eminently capable of exciting. I never saw two persons in face and figure more alike than Crosby and my friend Daniel O’Connell: but Crosby was the taller by two inches, and it was not so easy to discover that he was an Irishman.8

DUELLING EXTRAORDINARY

Frequency of election-duels – Ludicrous affair between Frank Skelton and an exciseman – Frank shoots the exciseman and runs away – His curious reasons – Sir J. Bourke’s quadrille duel, with five hits – Mr. H. D. G * * * y’s remarkable meeting with Counsellor O’Maher – O’Maher hit – Civil proposition of G * * *’s second – G * * *’s gallant letter to the author on his election for Maryborough – Honourable Barry Yelverton challenged by nine officers at once – His elucidation of the Fire-eaters’ Resolutions – Lord Kilkenny’s memorable duels and law-suits – His Lordship is shot by Mr. Ball, an attorney – The heir to his title (the Hon. Somerset Butler) challenges Counsellor Burrowes – The latter hit, but his life saved by some gingerbread nuts – Lord Kilkenny’s duel with Counsellor Byrne – The counsellor wounded – Counsellor Guinness escapes a rencontre – Sketch of Counsellor M‘Nally – His duel with the author – His three friends: all afterward hanged – M‘Nally wounded – Bon-mot of Mr. Harding – The affair highly beneficial to M‘Nally – His character, marriage, and death – Ancient mode of fighting duels – The lists described – Duel of Colonel Barrington with Squire Gilbert on horseback – Both wounded – Gilbert’s horse killed – Chivalrous conclusion.

Our elections were more prolific in duels than any other public meetings: they very seldom originated at a horse-race, cock-fight, hunt, or at any place of amusement: folks then had pleasure in view, and “something else to do” than to quarrel: but at all elections, or at assizes, or, in fact, at any place of business, almost every man, without any very particular or assignable reason, immediately became a violent partisan, and frequently a furious enemy to somebody else; and gentlemen often got themselves shot before they could tell what they were fighting about.

At an election for Queen’s County, between General Walsh and Mr. Warburton, of Garryhinch, about the year 1783, took place the most curious duel of any which occurred within my recollection. A Mr. Frank Skelton, one of the half-mounted gentlemen described in the early part of the first volume, – a boisterous, joking, fat young fellow, called a harmless blackguard, – was prevailed on, much against his grain, to challenge Roberts, the exciseman of the town, for running the butt-end of a horse-whip down his throat the night before, while he sat drunk and sleeping with his mouth open. The exciseman insisted that snoring at a dinner-table was a personal offence to every gentleman in company, and would therefore make no apology.

Frank, though he had been nearly choked, was very reluctant to fight; he said “he was sure to die if he did, as the exciseman could snuff a candle with his pistol-ball; and as he himself was as big as a hundred dozen of candles, what chance could he have?” We told him jocosely to give the exciseman no time to take aim at him, by which means he might perhaps hit his adversary first, and thus survive the contest. He seemed somewhat encouraged and consoled by the hint, and most strictly did he adhere to it.

Hundreds of the towns-people went to see the fight on the green of Maryborough. The ground was regularly measured; and the friends of each party pitched a ragged tent on the green, where whiskey and salt beef were consumed in abundance. Skelton having taken his ground, and at the same time two heavy drams from a bottle his foster-brother had brought, appeared quite stout till he saw the balls entering the mouths of the exciseman’s pistols, which shone as bright as silver, and were nearly as long as fusils. This vision made a palpable alteration in Skelton’s sentiments: he changed colour, and looked about him as if he wanted some assistance. However, their seconds, who were of the same rank and description, handed to each party his case of pistols, and half-bellowed to them – “blaze away, boys!”

Skelton now recollected his instructions, and lost no time: he cocked both his pistols at once; and as the exciseman was deliberately and most scientifically coming to his “dead level,” as he called it, Skelton let fly.

“Holloa!” said the exciseman, dropping his level, “I’m battered, by J – s!”

“Oh! the devil’s cure to you!” said Skelton, instantly firing his second pistol.

One of the exciseman’s legs then gave way, and down he came on his knee, exclaiming, “Holloa! holloa! you blood-thirsty villain! do you want to take my life?”

“Why, to be sure I do!” said Skelton. “Ha! ha! have I stiffened you, my lad?” Wisely judging, however, that if he staid till the exciseman recovered his legs, he might have a couple of shots to stand, he wheeled about, took to his heels, and got away as fast as possible. The crowd shouted; but Skelton, like a hare when started, ran the faster for the shouting.

Jemmy Moffit, his own second, followed, overtook, tripped up his heels, and cursing him for a disgraceful rascal, asked “why he ran away from the exciseman?”

“Ough thunther!” said Skelton, “how many holes did the villain want to have drilled into his carcase? Would you have me stop to make a riddle of him, Jemmy?”

The second insisted that Skelton should return to the field, to be shot at. He resisted, affirming that he had done all that honour required. The second called him “a coward!”

“By my sowl,” returned he, “my dear Jemmy Moffit, may be so! you may call me a coward, if you please; but I did it all for the best.”

“The best? you blackguard!”

“Yes,” said Frank: “sure it’s better to be a coward than a corpse! and I must have been either one or t’other of them.”

However, he was dragged up to the ground by his second, after agreeing to fight again, if he had another pistol given him. But, luckily for Frank, the last bullet had stuck so fast between the bones of the exciseman’s leg that he could not stand. The friends of the latter then proposed to strap him to a tree, that he might be able to shoot Skelton; but this being positively objected to by Frank, the exciseman was carried home: his first wound was on the side of his thigh, and the second in his right leg; but neither proved at all dangerous.

The exciseman, determined on gauging Frank, as he called it, on his recovery challenged Skelton in his turn. Skelton accepted the challenge, but said he was tould he had a right to choose his own weapons. The exciseman, knowing that such was the law, and that Skelton was no swordsman, and not anticipating any new invention, acquiesced. “Then,” said Skelton, “for my weapons, I choose my fists: and, by the powers, you diabolical exciseman, I’ll give you such a basting that your nearest relations shan’t know you.” Skelton insisted on his right, and the other not approving of this species of combat, got nothing by his challenge; the affair dropped, and Skelton triumphed.

The only modern instance I recollect to have heard of as applicable to No. 25., (refer to the regulations detailed in last sketch,) was that of old John Bourke, of Glinsk, and Mr. Amby Bodkin. They fought near Glinsk, and the old family steward and other servants brought out the present Sir John, then a child, and held him upon a man’s shoulder, to see papa fight. On that occasion, both principals and seconds engaged: they stood at right angles, ten paces distant, and all began firing together on the signal of a pistol discharged by an umpire. At the first volley, the two principals were touched, though very slightly. The second volley told better; – both the seconds, and Amby Bodkin, Esq. staggered out of their place: they were well hit, but no lives lost. It was, according to custom, an election squabble.

The Galway rule, No. 2., was well exemplified in a duel between an old and very particular friend of mine and a Counsellor O’Maher, who had given offence, yet I believe was the challenger: no ground was measured; they fired ad libitum. G., never at a loss upon such occasions, took his ground at once, and kept it steadily. O’Maher began his career at a hundred paces distance, advancing obliquely, and gradually contracting his circle round his opponent, who continued changing his front by corresponding movements; both parties now and then aiming, as feints, then taking down their pistols. This pas de deux lasted more than half an hour, as I have been informed: – at length, when the assailant had contracted his circle to firing distance, G. cried out, suddenly and loudly: O’Maher obeyed the signal, and instantly fired: G. returned the shot, and the challenger reeled back hors de combat.

On the same occasion, Mr. O’Maher’s second said to G.’s, (the famous Counsellor Ned Lysight,) “Mr. Lysight, take care: – your pistol is cocked!” – “Well, then,” said Lysight, “cock yours, and let me take a slap at you, as we are idle!” However, this proposition was not acceded to.

There could not be a greater game-cock (the Irish expression for a man of determined courage) than my friend G – . That he was not only spirited himself, but the cause of infusing spirit into others, will appear from the following humorous letter which I received from him during my contested election for Maryborough. That election gave rise to many characteristic Irish adventures, for which this volume does not afford compass. Lord Castlecoote, the returning officer, (himself also a joint proprietor,) evinced an excessive horror of becoming acquainted with the reporters. Some person having jocularly told him of my friend’s letter, it became a subject of great amusement, and afforded a variety of anecdotes for the Honourable Robert Moore, who supported me on that election against his brother, the Marquis of Drogheda.

“Dublin, Jan. 29th, 1800.

“My dear Jonah,

“I have this moment sent to the mail coach-office two bullet-moulds, not being certain which of them belongs to the reporters: suspecting, however, that you may not have time to melt the lead, I also send half-a-dozen bullets, merely to keep you going while others are preparing.

“I lament much that my situation and political feeling prevent me from seeing you exhibit at Maryborough.

“Be bold, wicked, steady, and fear nought!

“Give a line to yours, truly,“H. D. G.“Jonah Barrington, Esq.”

I took his advice: – our friendship was long and close; and we never (that I am aware of) had any cause for coolness.

There could not be a better elucidation of Rule No. 5. of the code of honour, than an anecdote of Barry Yelverton, second son of Lord Avonmore, baron of the exchequer. – Barry was rather too odd a fellow to have been accounted at all times perfectly compos mentis. He was a barrister. In a ball-room on circuit, where the officers of a newly arrived regiment had come to amuse themselves and set the Munster lasses agog, Barry, having drunk too many bumpers, let out his natural dislike to the military, and most grossly insulted several of the officers; abusing one, treading on the toes of another, jostling a third, and so forth, till he had got through the whole regiment. Respect for the women, and the not choosing to commit themselves with the black gowns on the first day of their arrival, induced the insulted parties to content themselves with only requiring Barry’s address, and his hour of being seen the next morning. Barry, with great satisfaction, gave each of them his card, but informed them that sending to him was unnecessary; – that he was his own second, and would meet every man of them at eight o’clock next morning, in the ball-room; concluding by desiring them to bring their swords, as that was always his weapon. Though this was rather a curious rendezvous, yet, the challenged having the right to choose his weapon, and the place being à propos, the officers all attended next day punctually, with the surgeon of the regiment and a due proportion of small-swords, fully expecting that some of his brother gownsmen would join in the rencontre. On their arrival, Barry requested to know how many gentlemen had done him the honour of giving him the invitation, and was told their names, amounting to nine. “Very well, gentlemen,” said Yelverton, “I am well aware I abused some of you, and gave others an offence equivalent to a blow, – which latter being the greatest insult, we’ll dispose of those cases first, and I shall return in a few minutes fully prepared.”

They conceived he had gone for his sword, and friends. But Barry soon after returned alone, and resumed thus: – “Now, gentlemen, those to each of whom I gave an equivalent to a blow will please step forward.” Four of them accordingly did so, when Barry took from under his coat a bundle of switches, and addressed them as follows: – “Gentlemen, permit me to have the honour of handing each of you a switch, (according to the rule No. 5. of the Tipperary Resolutions,) wherewith to return the blow, if you feel any particular desire to put that extremity into practice. I fancy, gentlemen, that settles four of you; and as to the rest, here, (handing one of his cards to each, with I beg your pardon written above his name) that’s agreeable to No. 1. (reading the Rule). Now I fancy all your cases are disposed of; and having done my duty according to the Tipperary Resolutions, which I will never swerve from, – if, gentlemen, you are not satisfied, I shall be on the bridge to-morrow morning, with a case of barking-irons.” The officers stared, first at him, then at each other: the honest, jolly countenance and drollery of Barry were quite irresistible; first a smile of surprise, and then a general laugh, took place, and the catastrophe was their asking Barry to dine with them at the mess, where his eccentricity and good humour delighted the whole regiment. The poor fellow grew quite deranged at last, and died, I believe, in rather unpleasant circumstances.

The late Lord Mount Garret (afterward Earl of Kilkenny) had for several years a great number of law-suits on his hands at once, particularly with some insolvent tenants, whose causes had been gratuitously taken up by Mr. Ball, an attorney; – Mr. William Johnson and several other gentlemen of the circuit took their briefs. His Lordship was dreadfully tormented. He was naturally a very clever man, and devised a new mode of carrying on his law-suits, not being able, as he said, to trust his attorney out of his sight.

He engaged a clientless attorney, named Egan, as his working solicitor, at a very liberal yearly stipend, upon the express terms of his undertaking no other business whatsoever, and holding his office solely in his Lordship’s own house and under his own eye and direction. His Lordship applied to Mr. Fletcher (afterward judge) and to myself, requesting an interview; whereupon, he informed us of his situation: that there were generally eight or ten counsel pitted against him; but that he would have much more reliance on the advice and punctual attendance of two certain, than of ten straggling gentlemen; and that, under the full conviction that one of us at least would always attend the court when his causes were on, and not leave him in the lurch as he had been left, he had directed his attorney to mark on our two briefs ten times the amount of what the fees should be on the other side: “Because,” said his Lordship, “if you don’t attend, to a certainty I must engage ten counsel, as well as my opponents.” The singularity of the proposal set us laughing, in which his Lordship joined.

Fletcher and I accepted the offer: we did punctually and zealously attend these numerous trials, and were most liberally feed; but most unsuccessful in our efforts; for we never were able to gain a single cause, verdict, or motion, for our client.