If He Does Not Challenge And Fight His
Antagonist, He Is Broke With Infamy By A Court-Martial; If He
Fights And Kills Him, He Is Tried By The Civil Power, Convicted
Of Murder, And, If The Royal Mercy Does Not Interpose, He Is
Infallibly Hanged:
All this, exclusive of the risque of his own
life in the duel, and his conscience being burthened with the
blood of a man, whom perhaps he has sacrificed to a false
punctilio, even contrary to his own judgment.
These are
reflections which I know your own good sense will suggest, but I
will make bold to propose a remedy for this gigantic evil, which
seems to gain ground everyday: let a court be instituted for
taking cognizance of all breaches of honour, with power to punish
by fine, pillory, sentence of infamy, outlawry, and exile, by
virtue of an act of parliament made for this purpose; and all
persons insulted, shall have recourse to this tribunal: let every
man who seeks personal reparation with sword, pistol, or other
instrument of death, be declared infamous, and banished the
kingdom: let every man, convicted of having used a sword or
pistol, or other mortal weapon, against another, either in duel
or rencountre, occasioned by any previous quarrel, be subject to
the same penalties: if any man is killed in a duel, let his body
be hanged upon a public gibbet, for a certain time, and then
given to the surgeons: let his antagonist be hanged as a
murderer, and dissected also; and some mark of infamy be set on
the memory of both.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 256 of 535
Words from 68745 to 69012
of 143308