Duels.—Judicial Combats.—Existing Code of Honour.—Appeal to
Arms.—Discussion on Duelling.—Mount Peril.—Noxious Vapours.—The
Cavern.
The visit of the travellers to Mount Peril, in the state of Bath, was
preceded, and in some measure probably caused, by a conversation
casually occurring on the subject of duels; and the notes taken of this,
it may be as well first to lay before the reader.
Much inquiry and mutual communication appear to have taken place, as was
to be expected, between the Southlanders and their guests respecting the
institutions and manners of their respective countries; and among others
the subject of duelling, as prevailing among the Europeans and
Americans, happened one day to be introduced in a mixed company. A large
proportion of the younger persons present expressed their astonishment
that a people pretending to civilization should fight out their disputes
“like the savages.” This expression, as appears from several of the
notices already recorded, was perpetually in their mouths; and some
added, that the savages in their code of honour had the advantage of the
Europeans. The New-Hollanders in these parts have, it seems, in respect
of their duels, similar customs to those that have been observed by our
settlers.
It has long been known that the aborigines of New South Wales leave all
quarrels between individuals to be settled by a solemn judicial combat,
the community interfering no farther than to see fair play. But their
notions of fair play differ considerably from ours. If it, indeed, does
not appear clearly which is the party aggrieved, they fight it out, man
to man; the tribe being present as bystanders, while the combatants
engage with spears or waddies (wooden swords) till the _satisfaction_ is
complete. But if one of the parties is adjudged to have the
preponderance of justice on his side, he is allowed to bring a friend
with him, as an auxiliary; and in very flagrant cases, even two or more,
according to the character of the offence to be avenged.
In all cases, the offending party, however clear his guilt may be, is
allowed to fight for his life; but in some cases, of course, against
such odds as render it next to impossible he should escape. This, the
Southlanders observed, was a degree better than the European duels, in
which the regulations of our code of honour require the parties, however
palpably one of them may be in the wrong, to meet on equal terms, or
with an inequality only in favour of the one who may chance to be the
better shot or swordsman.
Others of the company entered more fully into the discussion of the
general grounds on which duelling is to be reprobated, being cordially
joined in their censure by Mr. Jones, who urged the objections, with
which every one is familiar, against the wickedness of taking away a
fellow-creature’s life, and exposing one’s own, in revenge for a
trifling affront—the absurdity of calling it a satisfaction to stand to
be shot at, and other such topics, which it is unnecessary to enlarge
on, as they may be read in numerous essays and tales, and heard at every
tea-table.
The Messrs. Smith, on the other hand (naval men, as has been already
mentioned) took the other side, and endeavoured to vindicate the
existing code of honour. They urged that it is needless and nugatory to
go about to prove that a duel is a bad thing, and that to censure the
laws of honour on that ground is as unfair as to censure the law of the
land on the ground that imprisonment and hanging are evils, these being
the penalties denounced against a violation of the laws.
The requisition to expose one’s life in a duel is, in like manner, the
penalty denounced against a violation of the rules established in the
society of gentlemen. The law of honour, they said, does not enjoin men
to seek a duel as a desirable thing, but, on the contrary, to act in
such a manner as to preclude all occasion for an appeal to arms; and
that the penalty which any system of rules holds out against the
violation of them should be regarded as something to be carefully
avoided: this, so far from being an objection to the system, is
essential to its maintenance. As for the unfairness of putting the
injured and injuring party on a level, _that_ they did not deny; but
contended that it was an unavoidable evil, as in the case of war between
two independent states. That every war is an evil,—that in every war one
party must be in the wrong, and very often both: all this is universally
admitted, but all this does not answer the practical question, whether,
on the ground that war is an evil, a state should submit, and proclaim
itself ready to submit, to any extent of encroachment and aggression
from foreign nations without resistance. “If you go to war,” it might be
urged, “with those who have wronged you, you put yourself on equal terms
with the wrong-doer, and are likely to suffer as much or more than the
offending party.” “Very true,” it might be answered, “but we cannot help
that; if we could, we would make all the evil of the war fall on the
nation that has injured us; but as it is, we must do the best we can to
deter our neighbours from injuring us: having no common superior to
appeal to, we have no alternative but to fight for our rights, or to be
insulted and oppressed with impunity.”
When it was urged in reply, that, though nations have not, individuals
have, a common authority to appeal to—that of the community to which
they belong, this was roundly denied; and it was contended that the
appeal to single combat does not take place in cases when the law of the
land provides adequate redress, but in those only where it either cannot
or will not afford any, or any but such as would be a mere mockery to
the feelings of the sufferer. A man, they urge, does not challenge any
one for robbing him of his purse, or for firing his barn, but for
injuries of quite a different description, far more grievous to one
moving in a certain circle of society, but which the law either refuses
to take cognizance of at all, or for which it provides such redress as
would aggravate the evil by rendering the sufferer ridiculous. Now a man
resigns to the community his natural right of personal self-defence on
the implied condition that the community shall protect him; and in
cases, therefore, where it either cannot, or will not, fulfil this
condition, his original natural right remains unimpaired. Thus, when a
man is suddenly assaulted by a robber, he is free to defend his person
and property as well as he can; and on the same principle, when the
injury is of such a character as the law will not, or cannot, defend him
from, he is left to guard his own honour with his own hand.
As to the evils resulting from duels, they observed that it is most
unfair not to take into account—though to calculate would be
impossible—the immense amount of evils prevented, and which there is
reason to suppose would take place but for the apprehension of a duel.
The insolence, the falsehood, the slander, the base and the overbearing
conduct, which are daily kept in check in many thousands of persons by
the recollection that there is such a thing as being “called out” for
such behaviour, is what no one can compute with any approach to
accuracy; these being preventive and negative effects, and therefore
incapable of being calculated, and liable to be underrated.
Some idea, however, they added, may be formed of these effects of the
laws of honour by looking to the conduct of those classes of persons who
are exempted from them. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for instance, who
are cried up as exempt from this Gothic barbarism, were accustomed, as
we see from the specimens of their orators that have come down to us,
publicly to revile each other in the grossest language. The Mahometans
also, of all ranks, appear to be, with few exceptions, very much what
Europeans would characterize by the term “blackguards;” and the same
description seems very applicable to the people of the Celestial empire,
from the haughty mandarin downwards.
In Europe, again, said these gentlemen, we see that those among the
higher classes—viz. ladies and clergymen, (it is to be presumed the
Messrs. Smith had met with unfavourable specimens of these, and were
rashly judging from such specimens,)—who are exempt from this law, are
apt to avail themselves of that exemption by indulging themselves in the
use of such language, and in such violation of truth and of decorum in
their attacks on opponents as a layman would be deterred from by the
apprehension of personal danger; so that, on the whole, it was contended
that the evil of the lives lost in duels—an extremely small number—may
be reckoned a cheap price paid by society for the advantages of
civilized and well-regulated manners. And, after all, it was added, even
that evil is not to be laid to the charge of the law of honour as a
necessary accompaniment, since, if all persons adhered constantly to the
rules of good society, there would never be occasion for a duel; in the
same manner as there would never be occasion, if all men would comply
with the law of the land, for any of the penalties of the law to be
actually inflicted.
An old gentleman named Christopher Adamson, of the State of Bath, who
was present at this discussion, now came forward to declare his
conviction that these arguments, though not without plausibility, were
entirely unsound, and his confidence that he should be able to establish
this to the satisfaction of the whole party; but he proposed to defer
giving his reasons till they should have viewed a spot in his
neighbourhood, curious and interesting on many accounts, and closely and
historically connected with the subject under discussion.
This was the celebrated Mount Peril (already alluded to), in the
immediate vicinity of the city of Bath. The invitation was accepted; and
the travellers shortly after set out on their excursion to visit this
mountain. It plainly appears to be an extinct volcano. The settlers
found it regarded with superstitious awe by the natives, who had among
them a tradition of smoke having been seen at times to issue from it,
and who regarded it as the habitation of certain malignant deities, of a
similar character to the Pèlè venerated in the island of Hawaii
(Owhyhee). The medicinal warm springs flowing from the foot of it gave
occasion to the fixing of the city of Bath (thence so named) in the
neighbourhood. It is one of the oldest states, the warm baths having
early acquired such repute as to be highly attractive.
The circumstance which gave rise to the appellation of Mount Peril was
the existence of certain caverns and fissures on one of its sides,
emitting at times noxious vapours, which had more than once proved fatal
to those who had incautiously ventured too near them. These were reputed
by the natives to be the abode of evil spirits, destructive to such as
approached them: and in the etymological sense of the word spirit
(_spiritus_, blast) this might be said to be literally true; for our
travellers soon ascertained that the danger arose from a deleterious
gas, the same that in coalpits is called the choke-damp, found also in
the celebrated “Grotto del Cane” in Italy, named and long celebrated for
the cruel experiments practised on dogs for the gratification of
travellers. This gas, now well known to every smatterer in chemistry as
the carbonic acid gas, so poisonous when received into the lungs, issues
forth, it should seem, in irregular blasts from these caverns, so as to
render them more dangerous of approach at some times than at others; so
that many persons have passed with impunity spots which have at
different times affected others with alarming or even fatal suffocation.
The cavern which the travellers inspected the most closely is situated
at the foot of a perpendicular cliff, about fifty feet in height, from
the top of which the mouth may be seen very distinctly and with perfect
safety; the gas being, as is well known, so much heavier than common air
that there is no danger of its rising even near so high as the top of
the cliff. The visitors tried the experiment of letting down by a rope,
with a chain at the lower end of it, a little iron grating brought for
the purpose, containing (as a humane substitute for a living dog)
splinters of dry wood set on fire, which being lowered when in a full
blaze into the cavern’s mouth, were suddenly and completely
extinguished. This cavern was easily accessible from below, as it opened
a kind of terrace of nearly level ground, called “the Ordeal Path;” but
though many persons had passed it with impunity, it was considered too
hazardous an experiment to be wantonly risked.