IV 



THE RING, THE TURF, AND PARLIAMENT 



I beseech you make the play, if you are stout. 



Sir George Saville to Lord Rockingham. 



Rockingham Memoirs. 



In the year 1804 there lay in the Fleet Prison a 

 young man, twenty-one years of age. Born in 

 August 1783, at the Crown Inn, on the road between 

 Bath and Bristol, he had moved with his father to 

 Bath, who set up in business as a butcher. The 

 father died, trade declined, and the boy failing 

 to meet his liabilities was sentenced to confine- 

 ment in the debtors' prison. Such was the opening 

 chapter of the long career of John Gully, who in 

 his time was butcher, pugilist, publican, and book- 

 maker, until he became a Member of Parliament, 

 a prominent owner of race-horses, and a wealthy 

 colliery proprietor. 



In the Fleet — " that Cavern of Obhvion " — 

 young Gully might have passed the best years 

 of his life had not his hard case reached the ears 

 of a famous citizen of Bath, who out of compassion 

 for his fellow-townsman called on him in prison. 

 Henry Pearce was then Champion of England, 

 and known far and wide in the pugilistic world 

 as the Game Chicken. He was greatly attracted 

 by Gully, and determined to secure his liberation 



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