“The mark of X THOS. MOLINEAUX.”

We will now refer back to the all-important and absorbing event of our hero’s second contest with Cribb, from which eighteen months elapsed before Molineaux met with a competitor in Carter, a Lancashire man, though he repeatedly challenged all England. This match, however, went off for a time, owing to Richmond, his erewhile patron, “guide, philosopher, and friend,” issuing a writ against him and taking him to a sponging house upon a ca. sa. This is now a bit of antiquated law for which our fathers smarted, and for which the young “Templars” may refer to their “Reader,” while we congratulate our reader that John Roe and Richard Doe are defunct, and no more “seize the body until the debt is satisfied.”

Richmond was now at war to the knife with Molineaux, and made a match for Carter to fight his late protégé for 100 guineas, on Friday, the 2nd April, 1813, when the men met at Remington, Gloucestershire, six miles from Banbury, at the junction of four counties. That there was a doubt about the honesty of this fight, the subjoined extracts from contemporary papers will show:—“Previous to the battle, the articles were read over to the combatants, in which it was stated that the winner was to have a purse of 100 guineas—when Carter stepped up, inquiring what the ‘loser was to have!!!’ Richmond, who was his second, gnashed his teeth and shrugged up his shoulders; Bob Gregson, his friend and patron, tremblingly alive as to the event of the contest, and flattering himself that Lancashire would prove proudly triumphant on this occasion, animatedly exclaimed, ‘Jack, never talk of losing, boy—thee must win, the chance is all in thy favour!’”

As we have already said Richmond seconded Carter, with Cooper as his junior counsel; Joe Ward and Bill Gibbons held briefs for Molineaux. Six to four, and in some instances three to one, were betted on the black. We regret to say that the only report we can discover of this battle is that by Pierce Egan, which, with some necessary pruning of slang and corrections of ungrammatical phrases must serve, faute de mieux:—

THE FIGHT.

Round 1.—It was the opinion of the most experienced pugilists that such a set-to was never before witnessed; one “was afraid, and the other dared not,” and two minutes were trifled away in this sort of caricaturing, when Carter touched Molineaux on the mouth, who genteelly returned it. They closed, and the man of colour was thrown. It would be absurd to detail by way of rounds any more of this worst of fights, though we readily admit that Carter was the best man after the battle began, and continued so throughout the fight. Molineaux was wretched in the extreme, and at one time bolted from his second, and had it not been for Colonel and Captain Barclay, he would never have returned to the scratch, he wished so much to get away. At another period he was down on one knee, and with both hands laid fast hold of the ropes, and being hit in this situation, he roared out lustily “Foul!” but he was given to understand that, by the laws of boxing, no one is considered down “without having both knees on the ground, with either one or both hands also.” In the fifteenth round he was so terrified that, upon being driven to one corner of the ring, he cried out lamentably, “Oh dear! oh dear! murder!” a little previous to which, he declared Carter “had bit him in the neck!” and soon afterwards he repeated, “there, he has bit me again!” and it was with great difficulty Joe Ward could persuade him that it was the knuckles of Carter, and not his mouth. This the once brave competitor of the champion! impossible! Could he have thus degenerated? Twenty-five rounds occurred, in which coaxing, persuading, dramming, and threatening, were resorted to, in order to make the man of colour perform something like fighting. But to the great astonishment of all the spectators, when Molineaux was dead beat, Carter fainted, and dropped his head as he sat on the knee of his second. With all the exertions of Richmond, it seems, he could not arouse Carter from his lethargic state, and he thus lost the battle in not coming to time. His fame, it is urged, was not only tarnished from this circumstance, but even his integrity called into question. The above battle created universal dissatisfaction.

Poor Bob Gregson, agitated beyond description at seeing Lancashire (as he considered) thus trampled on with disgrace, went up to Carter, exclaiming, “Jack, Jack, what be’est thee at? get up and fight, man!” But Bob might as well have sung psalms to a dead horse. Carter, some little time afterwards raised his head, feebly observing, “Stop a bit! stop a bit!” And whether by accident, design, or with an intent to conclude this farce in style we are not in the secret to unfold, but a disciple of Esculapius stepped up, and in the twinkling of an eye pulled out his lancet, and bled Carter, to the great astonishment of his friends and the spectators in general; thus preventing, even had any inclination remained on the side of Carter to have renewed the fight. The latter’s clothes had hitherto been preserved, during the fight, in the chariot of a man of distinction, but who, it is said, was so disgusted with the scene before him, that he instantly ordered them to be thrown out with disdain and contempt. In once more taking a slight view of the man of colour, whatever certainty there might have been of Molineaux being a sound man at the core, it is strongly urged that if his heart had been a good one, he must have won the first battle with the champion; however, be that as it may, since that period he has been dissipated to excess, completely gone off in constitution, and broken winded. One improvement appeared to have taken place: he was more temperate in setting-to, but he did not like to face his man, and it required no small ingenuity to get him into the ring.

POETIC RETORT

Between a “Town” and “Country Amateur” at Oxford; or, in the phrase of the day, Between a “Johnny Raw” and a “Knowing One!”

On witnessing Carter faint away when he had won the battle, but who contrived to lose the purse, in his contest with Molineaux.