314 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



affair, save than by handling or otherwise, his pistol. Once in the 

 hands of his friend, a man must abide by his dictation, consoling 

 himself with the knowledge, that if he is not carried through 

 the affair with flying colours, the blame attaches not to him : 

 all he has to do is to be on the fighting side, and to be perfectly 

 ready to shoot at, or be shot at for a week, if his second 

 requires it. On five different occasions I have been appealed to, 

 as second, in matters of this sort, and though on each of these 

 events the principals on either side cared as little for the risk of 

 their lives as any brave men need do, and Heaven knows, in 

 more than one instance, were as hot and peppery as hasty 

 tempers could render them ; yet there was no appearance 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 representa- 

 tions and accounts of them published 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 parties 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 definition become, 



