This, Sam’s final ring encounter, took place at Moulsey, on Tuesday, December 8th, 1814. Four to one had been betted on Sam previous to this fight, and he was backed, when fighting, till near the end of the battle, by the best judges in the pugilistic circles.
This defeat (which will be found detailed in the Appendix to Period IV., under Nosworthy), ruined him, and he sunk into dejection, misery, and want. Like many others of the headstrong race of hard drinkers, he was infatuated with the idea that nothing in the shape of excess could harm his iron frame. Indeed, Sam had been heard insanely to boast that he could train on “three glasses of gin, three times a day.” What wonder, then, that he fell? Excess, pride, and conceit destroyed his vigour and stamina, and on this occasion he might exclaim,—
“I’ve touched the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting.”
A few anecdotes from contemporary sources may show Sam’s fistic capabilities even in his decadence. Passing through Wapping, one evening, when it was almost dark, he observed a poor Jew and a sailor fighting, and, upon enquiring the cause, he was soon recognized by the unfortunate Mordecai, who had been several times floored by the rough son of Neptune. Sam stooped to pick up his Israelitish brother, when the latter whispered in his ear, “So help my Cot, Sam, I can’t fight any more.” “Hold your tongue, you fool,” replied Sam, at the same time falling down by his side: “you get up and pretend to pick me up: I’ll let fly at him.” This imposition was practised with success, and Sam, staggering on to his legs with well feigned grogginess, went bang in with his one-two at the Jack Tar, in such style that he saluted mother earth in a twinkling. The sailor, upon getting upon his pins, roughly exclaimed, “D—— my ——, this ain’t the man I was fighting with—it’s another. Shiver me, but his blows are like the kicks of a horse—I’ll have no more of this.” He instantly sheered off, while Sam and his friend dropped into a neighbouring gin-shop to laugh over the trick.
It is impossible correctly to ascertain the number of bye-battles in which Sam was engaged; but it is certainly within compass to assert, that he fought above one hundred.
In the vicinity of St. George’s Fields, a stout fellow of the name of Jones, a painter, and a neighbour of Dutch Sam’s, who valued himself upon his milling qualities, publicly declared that he was the champion of that quarter, and frequently had importuned Sam to have a set-to; the latter always declined. It happened one evening that Sam was regaling himself at a public-house, and glass succeeding glass of Deady’s brilliant fluid, had nearly obliterated worldly things from Sam’s pericranium, when Jones, learning the circumstance, entered the premises, and endeavoured to provoke him to a combat, but in vain. At length Jones struck him. This was too much, the staggering Sam returned it, and inquired “whether he was doing right or wrong to defend himself?” An adjournment to the street took place, when Sam, notwithstanding his intoxicated state, appeared to have the advantage, until Jones, seizing him by the hair of his head, threw him down, and struck him violently upon the stones. This unmanly act appeared to have a most unusual and electric effect, for it awoke Sam to a recollection of what he was about; and, to the surprise of the spectators, the Israelite started up exclaiming, “Take care, take care, I’m coming now!” put in such a bodier as nearly deprived Jones of his breath, following it up by a slashing hit over his eye, which levelled the brute in his congenial mud. Utterly flabbergasted by the severity and impetuosity of Sam’s hitting, he fairly bolted. Jones weighed thirteen stone six pounds; and, though destitute of propriety, was not without pretensions to science; this lesson taught him summarily the folly of vain boasting, and the superiority of a master in the art.
We cannot omit one bright trait in Sam’s character, and this was his honest determination to win his fight if he could. We read in his obituary notice, “Sam’s integrity was a bright jewel; it was undoubtedly of the first water; he was once tampered with by a large offer to lose a fight (Egan says 1000l.), but he at once disclosed the affair to his backers. If all our pugilists had displayed the like honesty, the ring would be in a very different state.”
Sam’s constitution originally was of the finest quality, and his strength, for his stature and weight, amazing. The day he fought with Cropley he asserted that he was able to “floor an ox.” The Game Chicken once affronted Sam, when the latter informed that formidable boxer that he could not beat him in a quarter of an hour. In private life, Sam possessed a good deal of comic humour; and he passed much of his latter time in the service of Saunders, the equestrian circus keeper, of Bartholomew Fair notoriety.