Under England's flag

by Charles Boothby

I was billeted in the house of an obliging Italian in the best street, where the Commander-in-Chief, the Engineer mess, and everything that it was desirable to be near to, were situated.

The mess was very bad, but the mates (as is almost always the case in the corps to which I have the pleasure to belong) were very good and entertaining. Burgos, Mortimer, and myself formed an indissoluble trio, from which union I cannot express the pride and pleasure I have derived for several years, and which I hope will last me through life.

Besides Burgos and Mortimer were several interesting characters which I shall have occasion to notice as I go along, and among others was little Archer, a friend of my boyhood; Captain Notpat, whom I scarcely knew; and Captain Packman, convivial, festive, and good-natured to a great degree, and several younger men. Our Chief, a man of indisputable worth and bland manners, used also to honour us with his society.

I had not dined here many days before my little friend Archer took me into his room and desired me to carry his defiance to Captain Notpat, who had offended him beyond reparation.

Before I inquired into particulars I reviled my little friend for being too warlike in this particular, as it was not the first nor the second time that I had known him in similar circumstances. He defended himself as well as he could, declared himself averse to duelling, and said he should be very glad if the Captain would act so as to let the affair end peaceably.

Upon this I declared myself very ready to act in quality of mediator if the affair would admit of adjustment, and he would promise to be ruled by my advice, but, at the same time, I declared my unvarying resolution not to interfere if matters took a hostile turn.

Fully master then of my friend’s story, and armed with full powers to treat, I knocked at the Captain’s door. He was not gone to bed, and seemed preparing for a field-day.

He received me involuntarily as his adversary’s second, and ceremoniously begged me to be seated.

My friend, I found, had stated the matter very fairly. The Captain had been provoked at table rather by a teasing manner than any tangible offence, and in revenge he had told my friend in broad terms that he asserted an untruth, and that he might consider the accusation in any light he pleased. Now, though the Captain is a man whose good qualities do sink his imperfections into insignificance, yet had he some certain simplicity or want of usage of the world unfitting his situation and line of life, and this laid him a little open to quizzing, a game at which my friend was not unskilled and much too apt; but fighting is not the way to oppose quizzing, and it appeared to me that in justice and fairness the Captain stood as the unprovoked assailant.

I represented with what force I could the melancholy consequences which might ensue, and which he must be sensible would be laid at his door. “You acknowledge,” said I, “that you gave an insult which you knew could not be passed over, but which you were determined should stop the provoking manner which my friend had for some time pointed at you? Is this the only way in which you can oppose the flippancy of a boy? You have given him an insult which obliges him to call you out, for unless you do away the insult, I will never advise him not to do what I would do myself; and have you turned over in your mind what may be the state of things to-morrow evening? The best that can happen to you, according to my opinion of your feelings, is to receive your adversary’s bullet; and in that case have you reflected upon what grounds you think yourself entitled to close the days of your parents in misery, and to cast a lasting grief upon all your relations? Perhaps to-morrow evening that youth against whom you have no enmity, with whom you have lived in friendship, and whom you know to be worthy, will be stretched in the ghastliness of a violent death, and weltering in the blood which you have lightly shed. What will be your feelings on looking at such a spectacle, the entire work of your own hands? It will not be his fault, for if he submits to an insult he will be despised, and he had better die; but by sending me to you he has opened the door to atonement, and I expect the proof of your courage and magnanimity will be to make it with candour, than which nothing is more noble or more suitable to the character of a gentleman and a man of honour.”