“I think,” he wrote in the Cornhill, “I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan ... that the battle was a drawn one. The advantage was all on Mr. Sayers’s side.... Now when the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas released, the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly blind of one eye, and speedily afterwards was blind of both. Could Mr. Sayers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? He says he could.”
Thackeray is generally supposed to have been present at this fight and indeed was reported so by at least one newspaper. In this article in the Cornhill, he denies it, though in a somewhat involved fashion. His indignation in the matter was much more forcibly expressed in Punch for April 28th, 1860, to which he contributed (anonymously):—
The Fight of Sayerius and Heenanus
A LAY OF ANCIENT LONDON
(Supposed to be recounted to his great-grandchildren, April 17th, A.D. 1920, by an Ancient Gladiator)
“... What know ye, race of milksops,
Untaught of the P. R.
What stopping, lunging, countering,
Fibbing or rallying are?
What boots to use the lingo,
When you have not the thing?
How paint to you the glories
Of Belcher, Cribb, or Spring—
To you, whose sire turns up his eyes
At mention of the Ring?
*****
Then each his hand stretched forth to grasp,
His foeman’s fives in friendly clasp;
Each felt his balance trim and true—
Each up to square his mauleys threw;
Each tried his best to draw his man—
The feint, the dodge, the opening plan,
Till left and right Sayerius tried:
Heenanus’s grin proclaimed him wide;
He shook his nut, a lead essayed,
Nor reached Sayerius’s watchful head.
At length each left is sudden flung,
We heard the ponderous thud,
And from each tongue the news was wrung,
Sayerius hath “First Blood!”
Adown Heenanus’s Roman nose
Freely the tell-tale claret flows,
While stern Sayerius’s forehead shows
That in the interchange of blows
Heenanus’s aim was good!
Again each iron mauley swung,
And loud the counter-betting rung,
Till breathless all, and wild with blows,
Fiercely they grappled for a close;
A moment in close hug they swing
Hither and thither round the ring,
Then from Heenanus’s clinch of brass
Sayerius smiling slips to grass!
... in each succeeding round
Sayerius smiling came,
With head as cool and wind as sound,
As his first moment on the ground,
Still confident and game.
How from Heenanus’s sledge-like fist,
Striving a smasher to resist,
Sayerius’s stout right arm gave way,
Yet the maimed hero still made play....
Fain would I shroud the tale in night,—
The meddling Blues that thrust in sight,—
The Ring-Keepers o’erthrown;—
The broken ring—the cumbered fight,—
Heenanus’s sudden, blinded flight,—
Sayerius pausing, as he might,
Just when ten minutes used aright
Had made the fight his own!
Alas! e’en in those brighter days
We still had Beaks and Blues,—
Still, canting rogues, their mud to fling
On self-defence and on the Ring,
And fistic arts abuse!
And ‘twas such varmint had the power
The Champion’s fight to stay,
And leave unsettled to this hour
The honours of the day!...”
Well, never mind about the canting rogues: we have seen Thackeray’s opinion of the men’s chances and the popular opinion. Let us now see what may be said on the other side.