Thenceforward, the pugilistic career of Humphries was a fruitless attempt to prevent his victor’s wreath from falling into the hands and adorning the brow of his able Israelitish rival. Twice did he do all that man can do—his best—to stem the advancing tide of fate, but in vain. How he struggled is already written in the memoir of Mendoza. Humphries lived for many years after their last contest (September 29th, 1790), and died in respectable circumstances, his calling being that of a coal-merchant in the Adelphi, Strand.
CHAPTER III.
MR. JOHN JACKSON—1788–1795.
In penning the History of Pugilism, one object has been our polestar—a desire on the one hand to avoid fulsome adulation, and, on the other, never to cast undeserved censure: to “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice,” but to speak of men as they were, and as their actions proved them.
These remarks appear appropriate to a notice of John Jackson, inasmuch as, blinded by early prejudices, which no after information has tended to dispel, and imposed upon by the contemptible sophisms and paltry libels of lily-livered scribes, who “earn their dirty pay” by pandering to what they suppose the taste of the reading public, no small proportion of that public has taken it for granted that pugilism and blackguardism are synonymes. It is as an antidote to these slanderers that we pen a candid history of the boxers; and, taking the general habits of men of humble origin (elevated by their courage and bodily gifts to be the associates of those more fortunate in worldly position), we fearlessly maintain that the best of our boxers (we take no account of outsiders, inasmuch as they have no claim to the designation,) present as good samples of honesty, generosity of spirit, goodness of heart, and humanity, as an equal number of men of any class of society. But the manly art of self-defence—one of the most generous, noble, and national traits of the English character—has never lacked detractors. The mean-spirited, the treacherous, and the cruel can never be its admirers. But does it appear that the mind is debased from witnessing such public displays? would the usages of society be infringed upon if such exhibitions were legalised? Are the feelings of men so blunted from these specimens of hardihood and valour, as to prevent them from fulfilling those public situations in life which many are called upon to perform, with fidelity, justice, and reputation? We reply, no! and experience corroborates our assertion. Were it otherwise, we should admit pugilism to be a disgrace to the country where it is permitted, and boxers obnoxious to society.
The “great moralist,” Samuel Johnson, surely saw the rough side of pugilism in his day; yet we read in his works, “Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when found associated with vice.” Without accepting the corollary of the ponderous Doctor, himself—as in the case of the brewer’s servant in Fleet Street, and of Davies, the bookseller in Covent Garden—a practical exponent of the ars pugnandi, we are ready to appeal to the readers of these pages, whether courage of the highest order, in the case of the leading pugilists, is not associated with forbearance, humanity, and active benevolence?
One of the most respected public characters in the early part of this century, whose patriotic attention to the preservation and due administration of the laws; whose firmness in supporting, upon all occasions, the liberty of the subject; whose dignity and consistency of conduct in representing the first city in the world in Parliament; and who filled the office of Lord Mayor of London, with honour to himself, and advantage to his fellow citizens, was an ardent and firm patron of pugilism, and “a friend” of John Jackson. We allude to Harvey Christian Coombe, Esq., whose name never suffered the slightest tarnish from his patronage of the Old English custom of boxing in the early part of his life; but, through a long and distinguished career, proved his pretensions so clearly to the character of a real Englishman, an honest citizen, and an independent senator, that in 1816 he was returned a fourth time as member for the City of London.
Another member of the senate, whose enlightened mind, classical acquirements, and transcendent talents, shone at a time when wits and orators were rife in St. Stephen’s Chapel, was the friend of John Jackson, and of pugilism. To a mind stored with ancient and modern literature, conversant with popular recreations in all their gradations, from the rusticity of a cudgelling bout at a country fair to an assaut d’armes in the aristocratic fencing-school, the Right Hon. William Windham added a true English spirit of fair play, when he thus publicly declared his sentiments:—“A smart contest this, between Maddox and Richmond! Why are we to boast so much of the native valour of our troops, as shown at Talavera, at Vimiera, and at Maida, yet to discourage all the practices and habits which tend to keep alive the same sentiments and feelings?” The sentiments that filled the minds of three thousand spectators who witnessed those two pugilists were the same in kind as those which inspired the higher combatants on that occasion. It is the circumstances only in which they are displayed that make the difference.
‘He that the world subdued, had been
But the best wrestler on the green.’