We cannot conclude this sketch of Mr. Gully without remarking that, with the knowledge of the world, he united the manners of a well-bred man; intelligent and quick of observation, he united with those qualifications, when moving in a less elevated sphere, that proper sense of his own capabilities, which generally attends intelligence and merit. After a few years passed in the occupation of a tavern-keeper, in which he earned general respect, he was so fortunate in turf speculations, and so well served by sound judgment in racing matters, that he retired and became the purchaser of Ware Park, Hertfordshire. Here he associated with the first circles of the county; fortune still smiling on him, he became a spirited breeder and racehorse proprietor, an owner of collieries, and lastly, in 1832, attained the proud position of one of England’s senators; being returned to parliament as representative for Pontefract, in the first reformed parliament. We recently heard a blockhead object that Mr. Gully was originally a butcher: his father, whom he succeeded, was a master butcher of respectability—so was the father of Cardinal Wolsey. We have had among succeeding occupants of the woolsack, a Newcastle barber’s son, and the offspring of a grocer; one prime minister, the son of an actress; another the descendant of a cotton spinner; the greatest engineering genius of our age, the son of a pitman, himself a furnace-stoker, and, as we shall presently see, a pugilist; so that surely such sneers at self-made men by those who have certainly not made themselves are too snobbish and contemptible to affect any but their utterers. A paragraph from the pen of a sportsman must find a place here:
“It was the late Mr. Buckland who, when on a visit to Lord Fitzwilliam, told me of the impression made upon him by the appearance of a fine handsome gentleman coming up the staircase with a beautiful girl in green velvet on either arm—the member for Pontefract, with two of his daughters. Poor “Sylvanus” thus portrayed Mr. Gully in the very zenith of his career:—‘He had permanent lodgings at Newmarket, well and tastily furnished, and dispensed his hospitality to his friends with no sparing hand. An excellent cook, claret from Griffiths’, with an entertaining gentleman-like host, left little to be desired at the dinner awaiting us. Mr. Gully is justly esteemed, having raised himself from the lowest paths of life to the position, not merely of wealth, but to that of intimacy amongst gentlemen, on or off the turf, but still gentlemen in taste, which nought but the undeviating good manners, and entertaining, unpresuming deportment of Gully could for a moment, or rather for any length of time beyond a moment, suffer them to tolerate. No man ever possessed these qualifications, gained through innate acuteness, great common sense, and a plastic disposition to observe and benefit by the chance rencontres with the courtly patrons of his day to a greater degree, taking the early disadvantages he had to contend with into consideration, than John Gully. No man could be more above pretence, or less shy at any allusions to his early and not very polished career, than himself. When I dined with him at Newmarket, as well as upon subsequent occasions, I was most gratified by his manly openness, and lack of all sensitive false shame, on any occasional appeal being made to the bygone. He, on the contrary, entered freely into many entertaining portions of his history, answered all my questions con amore, and with perfect good nature, as to the mode of training, hitting so as not to injure the hand, wrestling, and other minutiæ of the ring; passing the claret and slicing the pine, as if foaled at Knowsley or Bretby. He had a quiet sly way of joking on any turf affair, on which, bear in mind, he was as au fait as Zamiel making a book for the Derby. The turbot came from Billingsgate by express, and the haunch from his own park. Moët purveyed the champagne, Marjoribanks the port, and, as I have before said, Griffiths the Lafitte. We had no skulking host be assured, but the most entertaining and liberal one alive.’ There is a genial tone about this sketch that tells at once for its truth, and it would be difficult to give any man a better character. Gully’s position at every turn and phase of fortune was still a trying one, but no man more fairly earned the respect he gained. There is a very moral of good manners in such a man’s history.”
Mr. Gully died at Durham, on Monday, the 9th of March, 1863, in the 80th year of his age, being born at Bristol, August 21, 1783. He was buried at Ackworth Hall, near that city, on Saturday, March 14, leaving a family of five sons and five daughters, moving in the best circles of society.
CHAPTER V.
DUTCH SAM (SAMUEL ELIAS).—1801–1814.
One of the most remarkable boxers of his time was the Israelitish phenomenon whose name heads this fifth chapter. In height about five feet six inches and a half; in weight nine stone four pounds, never more than nine stone eight pounds, Samuel Elias conquered some of the best eleven and twelve stone men of his time. When stripped Sam looked, in bust and ribs, more like a twelve stone than a nine stone man, showing he had his muscular power and weight in the right place. His shoulders were remarkably square, his arms round, long, muscular and hard; his hands seemed positively of iron, never puffing or knocking up from the punishing hits inflicted on his antagonist; while the quickness of his eagle eye, and the fierceness of his rally were unexampled among his fellow pugilists. A contemporary writer says: “As a hard hitter we except no pugilist whatever; Gully never struck with more force, nor Cribb more heavily than Sam, whose blows were truly dreadful to encounter.” It was the publicly expressed opinion of one of the most experienced and scientific pugilists of the day, that Sam would be a complete match for the mighty Cribb himself, if they could agree to give alternately merely blow for blow. Bill Cropley,[[101]] who was a burly and game boxer, declared he would rather stand half-an-hour’s milling from Tom Belcher (see Tom Belcher and Cropley, ante.), than five minutes of Sam’s punishment.
Samuel Elias was born on the 4th of April, 1775, in Petticoat Lane, Whitechapel. As we intend this work, so far as research will make it, to be reliable history, we shall omit the vamped up skirmishes of Pierce Egan, which he says “would fill a volume,” and come to the first authentic record of Sam’s fistic prowess.[[102]]
SAMUEL ELIAS (“DUTCH SAM”), 1801–1814.