The amateurs were completely surprised at the protraction of the above fight, for one hour and ten minutes. It is certain that Lee was not equal to the task of encountering so experienced and finished a pugilist as Mendoza; but it is equally true that his conduct was entitled to honourable mention; and, considering it was his first appearance in the ring, Lee acquitted himself in a superior manner. That he was not wanting either in courage or resolution was evident; and his scientific efforts, in several instances, were entitled to much praise; indeed, he eradicated the prevalent idea that he was nothing more than a sparrer.
Among the amateurs present the reporter enumerates, Lords Albemarle and Seften, Count Beaujolais, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, Sir John Shelley, Sir Eden Nagle, Captain Halliday, Squire Thornhill, General Keppel, Messrs. Baxter, Fletcher Reid, Bagley, Challis, Robert Allen, etc.
Year after year we find “Ould Dan,” with an eye to business, making tours and exhibiting the “noble art,” of which he was unquestionably a talented demonstrator. In the summer of 1819, Dan made a most successful sparring tour, and we find him at Lincoln issuing a hand-bill, of which the following is an extract:—
“Mr. Mendoza has the authority of members of the Senate and Judges on the Bench in asserting the tendency of the practice of boxing to prevent the more fatal resort to the knife or other deadly weapons. To gentlemen it may prove more than an exercise or an amusement, by initiating them in the principles of a science by which the skilful, though of inferior strength, may protect themselves from the ruffian assault of the powerful vulgar, or save their friends and those who are defenceless from insult and imposition.”
We have already had occasion to observe the rarity of men believing in the decline of their own physical capabilities; and Mendoza, unfortunately, must be added to the list of those who, in the words of Captain Godfrey, when speaking of Broughton, allow their “valour” so far to get the upper hand of their “discretion” as to “trust a battle to waning age.” But other men, as well as pugilists, are guilty of this mistake: we shall not therefore dwell upon it further than to say that Dan ended his career, like so many other celebrated men, in defeat, though by no means in disgrace.
In July, 1820, being fourteen years from his last appearance within the roped ring, Mendoza met Tom Owen, in a contest for fame and 50 guineas. The battle arose from an old grudge; and although no one can doubt the game of Tom Owen, as we shall duly note in our memoir of that boxer, yet the frothy outpourings of the “Historian” in honour of his friend “Tom,” and at the expense of Mendoza,[[56]] are as bad in taste as they are extravagant in phrase. Be that as it may, Dan was defeated, and we need hardly add it was his “last appearance” within the ropes, though not “upon any stage,” the Fives Court being occasionally illuminated by his displays. In August, 1820, he made an “appeal” to the amateurs for “past services” to the pugilistic state, and delivered the subjoined address, which breathes a tone of reproach to the boxers as well as gratitude to his patrons:—
“Gentlemen,—I return you my most sincere thanks for the patronage you have afforded me to-day, and likewise for all past favours. To those persons who have set-to for me to-day, I also acknowledge my gratitude; and their services will never be forgotten by me. Gentlemen, after what I have done for the pugilists belonging to the prize ring, I do say they have not used me well upon this occasion; in fact, the principal men have deserted me in toto. Gentlemen, I think I have a right to call myself the father of the science; for it is well known that prize fighting lay dormant for several years after the time of Broughton and Slack. It was myself and Humphries that revived it in our three contests for superiority, and the science of pugilism has been highly patronised ever since. (Hear, hear, from some old amateurs.) Gentlemen, I have once more to thank you for the present, and all other past favours; nay, more, I now take my leave of you, and I trust that I shall never trouble you for another benefit. (Applause.) I have now only to say—Farewell.”
From this period Dan’s life no longer belongs to the history of the ring. We may, however, observe that for several years he supported a large family, a wife and eleven children, as a publican, keeping the Admiral Nelson, in Whitechapel. He died on the 3rd of September, 1836, among his “peoplesh” in the East, in the region where he had been so long the milling star, at the advanced age of 73.
Mendoza was, in company, a shrewd, intelligent, and communicative man. As a scientific professor of the art of self-defence it was Mendoza who trod most immediately in the steps of Broughton. His success as a professor was unrivalled; and there was scarcely a town in the kingdom where he did not exhibit his finished talents to admiring and applauding assemblages. It seems, from a work we have before us, published by Mendoza himself, and containing much forgotten squabbling between himself and Humphries, that he derived his first knowledge of the art, scientifically, from his elegant competitor, “the Gentleman Boxer.” But he so rapidly improved upon his master’s system as to stand for years without a rival. No man of his time united the theory of sparring with the practice of boxing so successfully as Daniel Mendoza; and hence, as a distinctive feature, the “School of Mendoza” marks a period in the History of Pugilism.