We, therefore,—for I speak but as one of a vast body who hold that Christianity and true Conservatism are synonymous,—we, who in these days of storm and tempest look to your Lordships as the sheet-anchor on which the preservation of the state depends,—we who, respecting your wisdom, and honouring your manly daring in the vindication and assertion of truth and duty, deeply believe, however, and know with unalterable conviction, that it is God’s blessing, and His only, which has hitherto maintained, or can hereafter maintain, you in your posts and in your usefulness; and who watch over you therefore with the jealousy of love, lest in aught, through inadvertence, you come short of your high and holy vocation. We call upon your Lordships, therefore, in the name of God and man, as you would be consistent with yourselves, as you hope God’s blessing to rest on your labours for your country’s good, to accompany the verdict you pronounce on the solemn occasion about to engage your attention with the fearless unqualified expression of your united abhorrence of the unhallowed system of duelling.
The following article contains a very graphic account of a duel, from the origin down to the acquittal of the prisoner:—
Your correspondent, whose communication on the subject of duelling you printed on Friday, must have adopted the principle which he lays down from an article in Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, a periodical which was born and died some twenty years ago; but which, during its brief existence, could boast some contributors who have since risen to eminence; among others, _et facile princeps_, the Right Honourable Thomas Macaulay, then at Cambridge—not, however, that I have the slightest reason to believe the paper to which I refer to be his. As the work is now scarce, I have made a copy of the article, which is at your service.
Suppose a high-spirited, but good-natured, young man receives an insult. It is possible that his first, or, at least, his second impulse, may be to pass it over, and content himself with despising the brute who offered it. The brute, however, mistaking love of peace for fear of war, and glad of an opportunity of oppressing safely, repeats the aggression; the bystanders, who, to a young man, are the representatives of all mankind, past, present, and to come, begin to show by their looks that they had not expected so much philosophy. Our hero gives or sends a challenge; a “meeting takes place,”—the brute is shot dead, and nobody regrets him, not even his creditors, for they had lost all hopes.