Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 2 (of 3)

The principle of strict justice certainly was with his Lordship; but certain formalities of the law were decidedly against him: he had, in fact, adopted an obsolete mode of proceeding as a short cut: thus, perceiving himself likely to be foiled, he determined to take another course, quite out of our line, and a course whereby no suit is decided in modern days – namely fight it out, “muzzle to muzzle,” with the attorney and all the counsel on the other side.

The first procedure on this determination was a direct challenge from his Lordship to the attorney, Mr. Ball: it was accepted, and a duel immediately followed, in which his Lordship got the worst of it. He was wounded by the attorney at each shot, the first taking place in his Lordship’s right arm, which probably saved the solicitor, as his Lordship was a most accurate marksman. The noble challenger received the second bullet in his side, but the wound was not dangerous. The attorney’s skin remained quite whole.

My Lord and the attorney having been thus disposed of for the time being, the Honourable Somerset Butler (his Lordship’s son) now took the field, and proceeded, according to due form, by a challenge to Mr. Peter Burrowes, &c., the senior of the adversaries’ counsel (now judge commissioner of insolvents). The invitation not being refused, the combat took place, one chilly morning, near Kilkenny. Somerset knew his business well; but Peter had had no practice whatever in that line of litigation– being good tempered and peaceable.

Few persons feel too warm on such occasions, of a cold morning, and Peter formed no exception to the general rule. An old woman who sold spiced gingerbread nuts in the street they passed through accosted the party, extolling her nuts to the very skies, as being well spiced, and fit to expel the wind, and to warm any gentleman’s stomach and bowels as well as a dram. Peter bought a pennyworth on the advice of his second, Dick Waddy, an eminent attorney, and duly receiving the change of a sixpenny-piece, marched off to the scene of action munging his gingerbread.

Preliminaries being soon arranged – the pistols given – ten steps measured – the flints hammered – and the feather-springs set – Somerset, a fine dashing young fellow, full of spirit, activity, and animation, after making a few graceful attitudes, and slapping his arms together as hackney-coachmen do in frosty weather, to make their fingers supple – gave elderly Peter (who was no posture-master) but little time to take his fighting position: – in fact, he had scarcely raised his pistol to a wabbling level, before Somerset’s ball came crack-dash against Peter’s body! The halfpence rattled in his pocket: Peter dropped; Somerset fled; Dick Waddy roared “murder,” and called out to Surgeon Pack. Peter’s clothes were ripped up; and Pack, secundum artem, examined the wound: – something like a black hole designated the spot where the lead had penetrated the abdomen. The doctor shook his head, and pronounced but one short word – “mortal!” – it was, however, more expressive than a long speech. Peter groaned; his friend Waddy began to think about the coroner; his brother barristers sighed heavily, and Peter was supposed to be departing this world (but, as they all endeavoured to persuade him, for a better); – when Surgeon Pack, after another fatal, taking leave of Peter, and leaning his hand on the grass to assist him in rising, felt something hard, took it up, and looked at it curiously: the spectators closed in the circle, to see Peter die; the patient turned his expiring eyes toward Surgeon Pack, as much as to say – “Good bye to you all, lads!” – when lo! the doctor held up to the astonished assembly the identical bullet, which, having rattled among the heads and harps, and gingerbread nuts, in Peter’s waistcoat-pocket, had flattened its own body on the surface of a copper, and left His Majesty’s bust distinctly imprinted and accurately designated, in black and blue shading, on his subject’s carcase! Peter’s heart beat high; and finding that his Gracious Sovereign, and the gingerbread, had saved his life, lost as little time as possible in rising from the sod: a bandage was applied round his body, and in a short time he was able (though of course he had no reason to be over-willing) to begin another combat.9

His Lordship having now, on his part, recovered from the attorney’s wounds, considered it high time to recommence hostilities according to his original plan of the campaign; and the engagement immediately succeeding was between him and the late Counsellor John Byrne, king’s counsel, and next in rotation of his learned adversaries.

His Lordship was much pleased with the spot upon which his son had chosen to hit Counsellor Peter, and resolved to select the same for a hit on Counsellor John. The decision appeared to be judicious; and, as if the pistol itself could not be ignorant of its destination, and had been gratified at its own previous accuracy and success, (for it was the same,) it sent a bullet in the identical level, and Counsellor Byrne’s carcase received a precisely similar compliment with Counsellor Burrowes’s: – with this difference; that as the former had no gingerbread nuts, the matter appeared more serious. I asked him during his illness how he felt when he received the crack? he answered, just as if he had been punched by the mainmast of a man of war! – certainly a grand simile; but how far my friend Byrne was enabled to form the comparison he never divulged to me.

My Lord having got through two counsellors, and his son a third, it became the duty of Captain Pierce Butler (brother to Somerset) to take his turn in the lists. The barristers now began not much to relish this species of argument; and a gentleman who followed next but one on the list owned fairly to me, that he would rather be on our side of the question: but it was determined by our noble client, so soon as the first series of combats should be finished, to begin a new one, till he and the lads had tried the mettle or “touched the inside” of all the remaining barristers. Mr. Dick Guinness, a very good-humoured, popular, lisping,10 dapper little pleader, was next on the list; and the Honourable Pierce Butler, his intended slaughterer, was advised, for variety’s sake, to put what is called the onus on that gentleman, and thereby force him to become the challenger, – which he was told by a young parson would considerably diminish the crime of killing him.

Dick’s friends kindly and candidly informed him that he could have but little chance – the Honourable Pierce being one of the most resolute of a courageous family, and quite an undeviating marksman: that he had, besides, a hot, persevering, thirsty spirit, which a little fighting would never quench: and as Dick was secretly informed that he would to a certainty be forced to battle (it being his turn), and his speedy dissolution being nearly as certain, he was recommended to settle all his worldly concerns without delay.

But it was to be otherwise. – Providence took Dick’s part, and decided that there should be no coroner’s inquest held on his body. The Honourable Pierce injudiciously put his onus (and rather a wicked one) on Dick in open court before the judge; an uproar ensued, and the Honourable Pierce hid himself under the table: however, the sheriff lugged him out, and prevented that encounter effectually; Pierce with great difficulty escaping immediate incarceration on giving his honour never to meddle with Dick, his members, or appurtenances, for three years, commencing from the day of his onus. This was an interruption which the Kilkenny family could not have foreseen; and at length his Lordship, finding that neither the laws of the land, nor those of battle, were likely to adjust affairs to his satisfaction, suffered them to be terminated by the three duels already narrated.

Counsellor Leonard M‘Nally, well known both at the English and Irish bars, and in the dramatic circles as author of that popular little piece “Robin Hood,” &c., was one of the strangest fellows in the world. His figure was ludicrous: he was very short, and nearly as broad as long: his legs were of unequal length, and he had a face which no washing could clean: he wanted one thumb, the absence of which gave rise to numerous expedients on his part; and he took great care to have no nails, as he regularly eat every morning the growth of the preceding day: he never wore a glove, lest he should appear to be guilty of duplicity in concealing the want of thumb. When in a hurry, he generally took two thumping steps with the short leg, to bring up the space made by the long one; – and the bar, who never missed a favourable opportunity of naming people, called him “one pound two.” As being a poet, the bar wags termed him “Olympus.” He possessed, however, a fine eye, and by no means an ugly countenance; a great deal of middling intellect; a shrill, full, good forensic voice; great quickness at cross examination, with sufficient adroitness at defence; and in Ireland he was both the staff and standing-dish of the criminal jurisdictions: in a word, M‘Nally was a good-natured, hospitable, talented, dirty fellow, and had, by the latter qualification, so disgusted the circuit bar, that they refused to receive him at their mess – a cruelty I set my face against, and every summer circuit endeavoured to vote him into the mess, but always ineffectually; his neglect of his person, the shrillness of his voice, and his low solicitor company, being assigned as reasons which never could be got over.

M‘Nally had done something in the great cause of Napper and Dutton, which brought him into still further disrepute with the bar. Anxious to regain his station by some act equalising him with his brethren, he determined to offend or challenge some of the most respectable members of the profession, who, however, showed no inclination to oblige him in that way. He first tried his hand with Counsellor * * *, a veteran of the bar, but who, upon this occasion, according to the decision of his fellows, refused the combat. M‘Nally, who was as intrepid as possible, by no means despaired, and was so obliging as to honour me with the next chance; in furtherance thereof, on very little provocation, to my surprise, and by no means to my satisfaction, gave me the retort not courteous in the Court of King’s Bench.

I was well aware of his object; and, not feeling comfortable under this public insult, told him (taking out my watch), “M‘Nally, you shall meet me in the Park in an hour.”

The little fellow’s eyes sparkled with pleasure at the invitation: never, perhaps, was any person so rejoiced at a good chance of going out of the world before dinner time. He instantly replied, “In half an hour, if you please,” comparing, at the same moment, his watch with mine: – “I hope you won’t disappoint me,” continued he.

“Never fear, Mac,” answered I, “there’s not a gentleman at the bar will be ashamed to fight you to-morrow, provided you live so long, which I can’t promise; – though I confess I wish you had selected some other of your friends for so very disagreeable an operation.”

We had no time to spare, so parted, to get ready. The first man I met was Mr. Henry Harding, a huge, wicked, fighting King’s County attorney. – I asked him to come out with me: to him it was “fine sport.” I also summoned Rice Gibbon, a surgeon, who being the most ostentatious fellow imaginable, brought an immense bag of surgical instruments, &c. from Mercers Hospital. In forty-five minutes we were regularly posted in the middle of the review-ground in the Phœnix-park, and the whole scene, to any person not so seriously implicated, must have been irresistibly ludicrous. The sun shone brightly; and Surgeon Gibbon, to lose no time in case of a hit, spread out all his polished instruments, dissecting-knives, forceps, scalpels, saws, tourniquets, probes of all lengths, &c., on the grass, glittering in the light on one side of me. I am sure it looked more like a regimental preparation before a battle, than for an individual encounter: – every thing was ranged in surgical order, ready for the most desperate operations; while a couple of young pupils from Mercers Hospital unfurled their three-tailed bandages like so many streamers. My second having stepped nine paces, then stood at the other side, handed me a case of pistols, and desired me to “work away by J – s.” – M‘Nally stood before me, very like a beer-barrel on its stilling, and by his side were ranged three unfortunate barristers, who were all soon afterward hanged and beheaded for high-treason; – namely, John Sheers, (who was his second, and had given him his point-blanks,) with Henry Sheers and Bagenal Harvey, who came as amateurs. Both of the latter, I believe, were amicably disposed, but a negociation would not be admitted by M‘Nally, (to whom it was of great consequence to fight a King’s Counsel,) and to it we went. M‘Nally presented so coolly, that I could plainly see I had but little chance of being missed, so I thought it best to lose no time on my part. The poor fellow staggered, and cried out, “I am hit!” and I felt some little twitch myself, which I could not at the moment account for. Never did I experience so miserable a feeling. He had received my ball directly in the centre of his ribs. My doctor rushed at him with the zeal and activity of a dissecting surgeon, and in one moment, with a long knife, which he thrust eagerly into his waistband, ripped up his clothes to the skin, and exposed his naked carcase to the bright sun.

The ball appeared to have hit the buckle of his suspenders (vulgariter, gallows), by which it had been partially impeded, and had turned round, instead of entering his paunch. While I was still in dread as to the result, my second, after seeing that he had been so protected by the suspenders, inhumanly exclaimed, “By J – , Mac, you are the only rogue I ever knew that was saved by the gallows!” – I felt quite happy that he was not dangerously hurt.

On returning home, I found I had not got off quite so well as I thought; the skirt of my coat was perforated on both sides, and a scratch just enough to break the skin had taken place on both my thighs. I did not know this while on the ground, but it accounts for the twitch I spoke of.

My opponent soon recovered, and after the precedent of being wounded by a King’s Counsel, no barrister could afterward decently refuse to give him satisfaction. He was, therefore, no longer insulted, and the poor fellow has often told me since that my shot was his salvation. He subsequently got Curran to bring us together at his house, and a more zealous partisan I never had than M‘Nally proved himself, on my contest for the city of Dublin, during which he did me good service.

Leonard was a great poetaster; and having fallen in love with a Miss Ianson, daughter to a very rich attorney, of Bedford-row, London, he wrote on her the celebrated song of “The Lass of Richmond Hill” (her father had a lodge there). She could not withstand this, and returned his flame. This young lady was absolutely beautiful, but quite a slattern in her person. She likewise had a turn for versification, and was therefore altogether well adapted to her lame lover, particularly as she never could spare time from her poetry to wash her hands; a circumstance in which M‘Nally was sympathetic. The father, however, notwithstanding all this, refused his consent; and consequently, M‘Nally took advantage of his dramatic knowledge, by adopting the precedent of Barnaby Brittle, and bribed a barber to lather old Ianson’s eyes as well as his chin, and with something rather sharper too than Windsor soap. Slipping out of the room, while her father was getting rid of the lather and the smart, this Sappho, with her limping Phaon, escaped, and were united in the holy bands of matrimony the same evening; and she continued making, and M‘Nally correcting, verses, till it pleased God to call his angel away. This curious couple conducted themselves, both generally and toward each other, extremely well, after their union. Old Ianson partly forgave them, and made some settlement upon their children.

The ancient mode of duelling in Ireland was generally on horseback. The combatants gallopped past each other, at a distance marked out by posts which prevented a nearer approach: they were at liberty to fire at any time from the commencement to the end of their course; but it must be at a hand-gallop: their pistols were charged alike with a certain number of bullets, slugs, or whatever was most convenient, as agreed.

There had been, from time immemorial, a spot marked out on level ground near the Doone of Clapook, Queen’s County, on the estate of my grand-uncle, Sir John Byrne, which I have often visited as classic ground. It was beautifully situated, near Stradbally; and here, according to tradition and legendary tales, the old captains and chieftains used to meet and decide their differences. Often did I walk it over, measuring its dimensions step by step. The bounds of it are still palpable, above sixty or seventy steps long, and about forty wide: large stones remain on the spot where, I suppose, the posts originally stood to divide the combatants, which were about eight or nine yards asunder – being the nearest point from which they were to fire. The time of firing was voluntary, so as it occurred during their course, and, as before stated, in a hand-gallop. If the quarrel was not terminated in one course, the combatants proceeded to a second; and if it was decided to go on after their pistols had been discharged, they then either finished with short broad-swords on horseback, or with small-swords on foot; but the tradition ran, that when they fought with small-swords, they always adjourned to the rock of Donamese, the ancient fortress of the O’Moors and the Princes of Offely. This is the most beautiful inland ruin I have seen in Ireland. There, in the centre of the old fort, on a flat green sod, are still visible the deep indentures of the feet both of principals, who have fought with small rapiers, and their seconds: every modern visitor naturally stepping into the same marks, the indentures are consequently kept up; and it is probable that they will be deeper a hundred years hence than they were a twelvemonth ago.

My grandfather, Colonel Jonah Barrington, of Cullenaghmore, had a great passion for hearing and telling stories of old events, particularly respecting duels and battles fought in his own neighbourhood, or by his relatives: and as these were just adapted to make impression on a very young curious mind, like mine, at the moment nearly a carte blanche, (the Arabian Nights, for instance, read by a child, are never forgotten by him,) I remember, as if they were told yesterday, many of his recitals and traditionary tales, especially those he could himself attest; and his face bore, to the day of his death, ample proof that he had not been idle among the combatants of his own era. The battle I remember best, because I heard it oftenest and through a variety of channels, was one of my grandfather’s, about the year 1759. He and a Mr. Gilbert had an irreconcilable grudge. (I forget the cause, but I believe it was a very silly one.) It increased every day, and the relatives of both parties found it must inevitably end in a combat, which, were it postponed till the sons of each grew up, might be enlarged perhaps from an individual into a regular family engagement. It was therefore thought better that the business should be ended at once; and it was decided that they should fight on horseback on the green of Maryborough; that the ground should be one hundred yards of race, and eight of distance; the weapons of each, two holster pistols, a broad-bladed but not very long sword (I have often seen my grandfather’s,) with basket handle, and a skeen, or long broad-bladed dagger: the pistols to be charged with one ball and swan-drops.

The entire country, for miles round, attended to see the combat, which had been six months settled and publicly announced, and the county-trumpeter, who attended the judges at the assizes, was on the ground. My grandfather’s second was a Mr. Lewis Moore, of Cremorgan, whom I well recollect to have seen – he long survived my grandfather: Gilbert’s was one of his own name and family – a captain of cavalry.

All due preliminaries being arranged, the country collected and placed as at a horse-race, and the ground kept free by the gamekeepers and huntsmen mounted, the combatants started, and gallopped toward each other. Both fired before they reached the nearest spot, and missed. The second course was more fortunate. My grandfather received many of Gilbert’s shot full in his face: the swan-drops penetrated no deeper than his temple and cheek-bones; the large bullet luckily passed him. The wounds, not being dangerous, only enraged old Jonah Barrington; and the other being equally willing to continue the conflict, a fierce battle, hand to hand, ensued: but I should think they did not close totally, or they could not have escaped with life.

My grandfather got three cuts, which he used to exhibit with great glee; one on the thick of the right arm, a second on his bridle-arm, and the third on the outside of the left hand. His hat, which he kept to the day of his death, was also sliced in several places; but both had iron skull-caps under their hats, which probably saved their brains from remaining upon the green of Maryborough.

Gilbert had received two pokes from my grandfather on his thigh and his side, but neither disabling. I fancy he had the best of the battle, being as strong as, and less irritable than, my grandfather, who, I suspect, grew, toward the last, a little ticklish on the subject; for he rushed headlong at Gilbert, closed, and instead of striking at his person, thrust his broad-sword into the horse’s body as often as he could, until the beast dropped with his rider underneath him: my grandfather then leaped off his horse, threw away his sword, and putting his skeen, or broad dagger, to the throat of Gilbert, told him to ask his life or die, as he must do either one or the other in half a minute. Gilbert said he would ask his life only upon the terms that, without apology or conversation, they should shake hands heartily and be future friends and companions, and not leave the youths of two old families to revenge their quarrel by carving each other. These terms being quite agreeable to my grandfather, as they breathed good sense, intrepidity, and good heart, he acquiesced; and from that time they were the most intimately attached and joyous friends and companions of the county wherein they resided.

My grandfather afterward fought at Clapook Squire Neddy Fitzgerald, who was badly shot. On this occasion, old Gilbert was my grandfather’s second: – I remember well seeing him; as I do also, about the same time, the late Chief Justice (then Serjeant) Pattison, who had come down to Cullenaghmore to visit my grandfather, and, as I afterward discovered, to cheat him of a borough and two seats in parliament, which he effected. Gilbert brought me a great many sweet things; and I heard that evening so many stories of fights at Clapook, and on the ridge of Maryborough, that I never forgot them; and it is curious enough that I have all my life taken the greatest delight in hearing of, or reading about, ancient battles and chivalrous adventures. Nothing amuses me more to this day; and hence perhaps it is, that I recollect those tales and traditions at the present moment with perfect distinctness and accuracy: my memory seldom fails me in any thing, and least of all in recitals such as the foregoing.11