The true northerner., 1885-08-13
The Duel In America.

Prior to the Revolution, duels were
h0 no means frequent in the American
Colonies. If they had been SO in any
of them. we would naturally suppose
that they were so in Virginia and South
Carolina. knowing, as We do, how favor
able the social conditions peculiar to
these two colonies we're to their ex-
istence; but that they were not common
in either of them is attested by the re-
searches of Lodge and Ramsay re-
spectively. Singular to say, one of the
first, if not the very first, duels fought
in the present limits of the United
States occurred at Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, in 1921, between two servants,
Edward Doty and Edward Leister,
who, having had some dispute, pro-
ceeded to settle il with sword and dag
ger. Up to this point the duel between
Doty and Leister differs but little from
the ten thousand duels which have
brought discredit upon human society.
But the sequel has little in common
with the reprehensible subserviency to
public opinion which has so often dis
graced the administration of justice
with respect to the duel, for Doty and
Leister were condemned by the stern
spirit of Puritanism to be tied neck and
heels together, and to remain in this re-
frigerating posture for twenty-four
houes without food or drink; and from
the full execution of their sentence
nothing except the intercessions of
their masters and their own penitent
humility relieved them. But this last
is not the most famous of the few duels
which have had the uncongenial soil of
Massachusetts, as an arena.
In 172S, the town of Boston was
startled by a nocturnal duel upon the
Common which is likely to remain in
the memory of men as long as that
which is forever associated with the
commanding intellect and untimely fate
of Alexander Hamilton; for Benjamin
Woodbridge, the young man who fell
in this duel, lies buried in q cemetery
which is so rich in historic dust that it
must always be an object of pilgrimage ;
and upon his grave an immortal rose
has been dropped, as every reader of
one of the most fascinating books in
American literature will recollect, by
the hand which was afterward linked
~
of the Breakfast Table. Henry Phillips,
the slayer of Woodbridge, fled to
France, where he died shortly after
ward; and the adherence which his
crime excited in Boston assumed a char
acteristic form. The Reverend Doctor
Sewell, of the Old South, delivered q
discourse which kept the sands for an
unconscionable duration of time in q
state of monotonous transition from one
end of the hour-glass to the other; and
q savage law was enacted, which de-
clared, among other things, that the
body of person killed in duel should
be buried near the usual place of ex-
ecution with stake driven through it,
and that the same fate should be re-
served for the body of the survivor after
he had been duly convicted and pun
ished. These are the two most famous
duels in the history of New England.
| Challenges have occasionally been
sent, and dueis have at long intervals
been fought, in New England, even in
the present century, and it is worthy OF
record that the father of the Massa.
chusetts states manwho was, on q mem.
Porable occasion, made the victim of the
licentious brutality which is such an
iuseparable concomitant of the duel
that it is hard to tell whether it is one
of it's effects or causes, was himself al
one time in his life second in a duel
but as. a rule, the duel has usually pre-.
sented itself to the mind of New En-
gland, except when its laws upon the
subject have been violated, in the same
light that it did to Massachusetts, Con.
gressman nearly one hundred years ago,
whoreplied to. hostile invitation from
Congressman Blount, of Georgia, by
saying that he made point of never
taking any important step without first
consulting his William Cabel
Bruce, I'm the Current.