THE CODE OF HONOUR. 385 



tempers could render them ; yet there was no appear- 

 ance on the field, and the nicest law of honour was 

 satisfied. In short, the man in the wrong was forced 

 by the seconds to admit himself to be so, and the 

 appeal to arms was avoided. Persons ignorant of the 

 nice sense of honour which properly governed these 

 things, and seeing the ridicule cast upon duels in 

 playhouse representations and accounts of them pub- 

 lished in the papers by foolish vain persons courting 

 notoriety, raised a cry in condemnation, and gained 

 a bad name for the possibility of an appeal to arms. 

 I call it " the possibility ; " for in well-managed 

 matters the necessity for the risk of life very seldom 

 occurred. Of course, at times there arose cases, 

 where the quarrel originated in words or statements 

 which had an equal appearance of truth, and which 

 neither party could, by the seconds, be permitted to 

 retract, and on these occasions the fight could not well 

 be avoided ; but when these cases happened, the par- 

 ties were given very little time for deadly aim, for, 

 as each principal might be said to have right on his 

 side, the signal for the discharge of the pistols was 

 so quickly given, that the probability was that no 

 blood was drawn. In serious cases the principals 

 were kept on the ground for two or three shots, or 

 until one was hit, but the necessity for this seldom 

 happened. That which militated most against the 

 duel arose from the impossibility which the growth of 

 trade occasioned, of defining who was or who was not 

 a gentleman, and so confused at last did this defini- 

 tion become, that every man in an unscathed coat and 

 trousers, who had no visible means of earning a live- 

 lihood, was deemed to come within the rule, and to 

 be entitled to what was still called " satisfaction." 



c c 



