Molineux did not train. As already suggested, he was a self-indulgent fellow and a spoiled child. He went on a sparring tour round the country with Tom Belcher (Jem’s brother), and Bill Richmond. They were not strong-minded guardians, and only just before the fight the black ate a whole chicken, and an apple pie, washing them down with a prodigious draught of porter.
When the men met before a huge crowd of about 20,000 people, the black was so amazed at Cribb’s appearance that at first he could hardly recognise him. The simple blackamoor had not believed in the virtue of getting fit: his strength, skill, and undoubted courage were enough for him. And here, shaking him by the hand, was a hard-faced fellow without an ounce of tallow on him, all bone and long, rippling muscles—a very different Cribb to the well-larded customer he had fought on Copthall Common. And none of the champion’s strength or stamina was gone—rather the contrary. Cribb had Gulley and Ward in his corner again, while Bill Gibbons and Richmond looked after Molineux. There is little to be said of the battle itself. It was fought on a stage this time, twenty-five feet square. Cribb scored the first knock-down. Captain Barclay recommended his man to let the black beat himself and to hold back. In the third round Molineux by an overhand blow closed Tom’s right eye, the fist hitting him on the cheek bone, immediately under the eye, so that the swelling took an upward direction. On his side Cribb was perfectly confident, but too old a hand not to be extremely careful, and wisely he gave most of his attention to Molineux’s body—always a good policy with a black man, especially when he is out of training. He nearly doubled up the Moor with one terrific right, and yet the plucky fellow pulled himself together immediately afterwards and threw Cribb heavily to the boards.
In a short while Cribb showed severe signs of punishment about the head and face, but he kept smiling amiably, which drove his adversary to madness, so that in the sixth round he was literally capering about in sheer frenzy, hitting the air wildly. Cribb came up to him and knocked him down. Again and again this happened, though at intervals Molineux regained his composure and fought well. In the ninth round, with a tremendous right-hander, the champion broke his jaw, after which he failed by half a minute to come up to time. But this was overlooked, and at the end of the eleventh round, when the battle had only lasted nineteen minutes and ten seconds, he sent home a left which knocked Molineux clean out of time: and the black was carried senseless from the ring.
Cribb made about £400 out of this fight directly, though no doubt this sum was largely increased by perquisites later on. Captain Barclay, by judicious betting, made about £10,000. And “through the kind interference of Mr. Jackson,” as Egan puts it, a collection realised £50 extra for the black, whose share of the purse would be £200.
It was on the occasion of this battle that the editor of the Edinburgh Star wrote:—
“When the amount of money collected for the relief of British prisoners in France, now suffering for the cause of their country, scarcely amounts to £49,000, there is—Blush, O Britain!—there is £50,000 depending upon a boxing match! The Champion Cribb’s arrival, and on a Sunday, too! on a visit to a gentleman of Aberdeen (we should be glad to know what kind of gentleman he is) as if he, the meritorious Cribb, did honour to the City of Aberdeen by his presence!”
(The gentleman of Aberdeen was Captain Barclay, who had property in that county and brought Cribb up there to train.)
There are two sorts of amusement to be derived from this quotation, and one of them, having regard to recent memories, is a very bitter sort.
After this, Tom Cribb retired from the Ring, and became, like the majority of successful bruisers of his own and of later times, a publican: and thenceforward the Union Arms in Panton Street, Haymarket, became a very popular house of call with all members of the Fancy.