I Apprehend Such Regulations Would Put An
Effectual Stop To The Practice Of Duelling, Which Nothing But
The Fear Of
Infamy can support; for I am persuaded, that no
being, capable of reflection, would prosecute the trade of
assassination at
The risque of his own life, if this hazard
was at the same time reinforced by the certain prospect of
infamy and ruin. Every person of sentiment would in that case
allow, that an officer, who in a duel robs a deserving woman
of her husband, a number of children of their father, a family
of its support, and the community of a fellow-citizen, has as
little merit to plead from exposing his own person, as a
highwayman, or housebreaker, who every day risques his life
to rob or plunder that which is not of half the importance
to society. I think it was from the Buccaneers of America,
that the English have learned to abolish one solecism in
the practice of duelling: those adventurers decided their
personal quarrels with pistols; and this improvement
has been adopted in Great Britain with good success; though
in France, and other parts of the continent, it is looked
upon as a proof of their barbarity. It is, however, the only
circumstance of duelling, which savours of common sense, as it
puts all mankind upon a level, the old with the young, the weak
with the strong, the unwieldy with the nimble, and the man who
knows not how to hold a sword with the spadassin, who has
practised fencing from the cradle.
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