Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1819-04-01
ALEXANDER
THURSDAY, APRIL I, 1919.

human character, and is the more disgust
ing because il is a counteraction OF mans
proper nature--while courage is so COM
mon quality that it cannot justly be sad
to confer distinction. In the unyriads OF
good and bad, gentlemen and vagabonds-
men of virtue and commissioners men
and rogues who compose an army, the num-
Der Of towards properly so called, are SO
few that old experienced leaders Of armies
generally come to doubt whether there is
a man who will not fight when necessary
so that il is probable that on the day of
the battle of Waterloo, Bonaparte, We'll
lington and Butcher would have concurred
in avowlng their belief, that there was not
in the mixed hosts who stood in that field,
a man who would not fight as hard as bis
duty demanded. Passing from armies to
mobs, he who is hart'y enough to try the
experiment, will find that in thousand OF
the most vile, degraded miscreaats who ia
fest the lanes and allies of London, Dublin,
Edinburgh, Paris or Lisbon-on the quays
of the Liffey, the docks of Liverpool, or the
wharves of the Thames, they will not per-
haps find one individual who will not on the
spot resent an insult and chastise the ag-
gressor, be he who he may, and his rank
what it will, or the consequence ever so
serious. should not be afraid to set up,
for large wager, the first score of bbers,
pickpockets, housebreakers or mendicants,
imposters of all nations who congregate in
the sites of St. Giles's, and stand daily can
didates for Botany Bay or The new drop,
or the first score of the butchers boys and
basket carriers of St. Patrick's market, as
animals OF courage, against the pick and
choice of those miserable, stupidand wick
ed fools, who pique themselves upon their
promptness for duelling; and every pirate
boat contains men equal to the mad Alex
ander of the north, as Pope called Charles
the l2h of Sweden, in courage. |. is a
most contemplate error to set such high
value upon a quality so excessively COM
mon, ard which We know by its being pos
sessed by so many ofthe lowest and basest
of thehuman race, in all its conditions, bar
barous, social or refine d, as well as by the
most exalted and virtuous, bears no neces-
sary relation to any other virtue. One would
think that nothing but the consciousness Of
differing deplorabIy from the mass of his
fellow creatures in that respect, could ever
start in him suspicion that courage is a
great and rare quality, and that his own
may be doubted-and am the more per-
suaded of it, because nearly at the end o: a
long life, am able to affirm with truth, that
of the few dastardsI have met in the course
ofmy life, the far greater number,-l might
say, almost the whole, were contentious,
captious, boastful Of their valor, and inces-
sanity on the alert to make the world be-
lieve that they were ready to Eght-while
on the other, men nho neither doubt their
own courage or that of others, are silent on
the subject-never advert 10 it-suspect
no man OF meaning an offence until he has
trespassed beyond all reasonable endu-
rance, proceed through life without once
specializing on the subject, and move on to
the grave without bearing malice or being
the objects Of il. Yet for the purpose of
maintaining character for this most COM
moa and universal of all human qualities,
and 10 avoid that suspicion which never
would be entertained if themselves did not
invite it, do thousands imbrue their hands
in the blood oftheir fellow beings, and not
unfrequently Of their friends.
Courage has always been regarded as
! laudable when exercised in defence ofself,
country, family and unprotected innocence;
but even in that kind of exercise, it must,
+, in order to be laudable, be pure and I'M
mingled with malice: and | can tell cur
duelists-our butchers OF button hole"
as Shakespeare calls them, that themen from
whom the practice of dueling has descend
ed to itSpresent gross s. degenerate state OF
savagery, were sofar from acting under the
Impulse of malice in the business, that they
underwent formal religious purgation at
the altar before they entered upon it, and
after acquitting their honor. were not less
solicitous TO spare the life of their adversa-
~ than to conquer him. In short, it would
not be difficult 10 demonstrate that no two
beings under Heaven can be imagined more
essentially different, than the hero of the