Account of an expedition to the interior of New Holland

by Lady Mary Fox; Richard Whately

They were not of common occurrence; but he added that his father distinctly remembered as a boy the final abolition of the practice, in the manner about to be related. The duel was regarded—and such is well known to have been its original design—as a kind of ordeal, as a solemn appeal to Heaven, which it was supposed would not fail to interfere in support of the rightful combatant.

And here Mr. Sibthorpe had the candour to interpose a remark, that, though duels have long since ceased to be considered in that light, the general principle is very far from being exploded among a large proportion of our own countrymen, who frequently apply the terms “providential,” and even “miraculous,” to the detection of murderers; the frustration of schemes of injustice; the escape of pious men from dangers of shipwreck or fire, &c. and who speak of pestilential diseases, conflagrations, and other fatal accidents, as judgments from Heaven on the sufferers; evidently referring to a supposed special interference of Providence to allot temporal successes or adversities according to the deserts of the parties; and often setting down as little better than an atheist any one who questions such a doctrine.

“Now,” said he, “if it be admitted that there is a special and extraordinary interference of Providence for the immediate temporal punishment of the wicked, and for the securing of success to a righteous cause, there seems no reason why this should not be looked for in the case of a judicial combat. Our ancestors were at least as wise as we, and more consistent, if we deride or reprobate the idea of a special interposition of Providence in the case of a single combat, while we look for it in all other cases. And you well know,” added he to Mr. Jones, “how strongly the doctrine I allude to is set forth in newspapers—in magazines—in publications of various descriptions, and, not least, in the nursery-books which are first put into the hands of children.”

This could not be denied. “Well, such,” continued Mr. Adamson, “had been our belief as well as yours. But while the trial by single combat was retained under an altered character, the other kinds of ordeal—such as the hot ploughshare, &c. to which women, as well as men, had in former times been exposed—fell completely into desuetude.”

Among the Southlanders the institution was, by an accidental circumstance, reintroduced. It seems that a woman, named Margaret Brucker, had been grossly defamed by a neighbour, and being highly indignant at the imputations cast on her virtue, and conscious of perfect innocence, she appealed to the judgment of Heaven, and challenged her accuser to accompany her publicly along the mountain side, by what was afterwards called the ‘Ordeal Path,’ to pass by the goblin cavern, the one viewed by our travellers. She professed her full confidence that her innocence would protect her from the demons residing there, and that the false accusation would be visited by a divine judgment on her who had devised it. Margaret appears to have been a perfectly sincere enthusiast, and to have possessed that fervid eloquence which is the result of genuine strong feeling. This, together with youth, beauty, and the sympathy excited by her distress of mind, operated so strongly on the superstitious feelings of the people that they vehemently seconded her proposal; and the woman who had accused her dared not refuse the trial.

The parties accordingly set forth, attended by a great concourse of eager spectators, who ranged themselves on the edge of the cliff overhanging the cavern in breathless expectation of the results. The magistrates had only ventured to exert their authority so far as to require that ropes should be let down from the top of the cliff, and secured by straps to the body of each of the women, so that in case of danger they might be safely drawn up.

Margaret, with a firm and undaunted step, walked unhurt close along the mouth of the cavern. Her companion, who had been observed to become pale and agitated as they approached the scene of trial, sank down insensible at the entrance of the cavern. The mingled shouts of wonder, alarm, horror, and exultation proceeding from the spectators of this complete fulfilment of the prophecy may easily be imagined. The fainting victim was drawn up by the rope to the top of the cliff, to all appearance dead. By sprinkling her with water, however, she gradually revived; and on being restored to her senses and speech, confessed, with much awe and contrition, the entire falsity of the stories she had circulated, and which she had fabricated through jealousy. She acknowledged, and no doubt fully believed, that she had been struck down by the demon of the goblin cavern as a just judgment on her calumny. Of course Margaret Brucker was venerated as little less than a prophetess, and the ordeal rose into high and general repute.

Several, indeed, of the more sagacious entertained at the time the opinion which it would then have been most discreditable to avow, but which has long since become universal, that the one party escaped unhurt because she walked erect across the opening of the cavern, the noxious gas being so heavy that its influence does not usually extend much more than one or two feet above the surface of the ground; and that the other, through the agitation of conscious guilt and superstitious terror, either turned giddy, or stumbled over a stone, and falling down, was immediately exposed to the full current of the vapour. This is agreeable to what is found to take place in the celebrated Grotto del Cane, which is entered with impunity by men, but is fatal to a dog (whose head is so much nearer to the ground) if the poor beast is compelled to remain over one of the fissures from which the gas issues.

The ordeal, however, was a very uncertain one, from the variations occurring in the quantity of vapour emitted. Sometimes both parties were suffocated, and oftener both escaped unhurt; and in some instances, as might have been expected, it happened that a person whose character had been cleared by the ordeal, was afterwards, by circumstances subsequently brought to light, proved, or violently suspected, to have been guilty.

Instances of this kind, in conjunction with the advancement of intellectual culture, gradually weakened, in progress of time, the belief in the supernatural character of the ordeal. It was, however, for a long time, frequently appealed to, both by women and men, from all the states; and, in spite of laws which were passed, but which it was found impossible fully to enforce, prohibiting any such trial, and denouncing as murder the offence of being accessary to any one’s exposure to it in case of a fatal result,—the custom still received the sanction of many who disavowed all belief of miraculous interference in the case of such trials.