Account of an expedition to the interior of New Holland

by Lady Mary Fox; Richard Whately

Duels.—Judicial Combats.—Existing Code of Honour.—Appeal to Arms.—Discussion on Duelling.—Mount Peril.—Noxious Vapours.—The Cavern.

The visit of the travellers to Mount Peril, in the state of Bath, was preceded, and in some measure probably caused, by a conversation casually occurring on the subject of duels; and the notes taken of this, it may be as well first to lay before the reader.

Much inquiry and mutual communication appear to have taken place, as was to be expected, between the Southlanders and their guests respecting the institutions and manners of their respective countries; and among others the subject of duelling, as prevailing among the Europeans and Americans, happened one day to be introduced in a mixed company. A large proportion of the younger persons present expressed their astonishment that a people pretending to civilization should fight out their disputes “like the savages.” This expression, as appears from several of the notices already recorded, was perpetually in their mouths; and some added, that the savages in their code of honour had the advantage of the Europeans. The New-Hollanders in these parts have, it seems, in respect of their duels, similar customs to those that have been observed by our settlers.

It has long been known that the aborigines of New South Wales leave all quarrels between individuals to be settled by a solemn judicial combat, the community interfering no farther than to see fair play. But their notions of fair play differ considerably from ours. If it, indeed, does not appear clearly which is the party aggrieved, they fight it out, man to man; the tribe being present as bystanders, while the combatants engage with spears or waddies (wooden swords) till the satisfaction is complete. But if one of the parties is adjudged to have the preponderance of justice on his side, he is allowed to bring a friend with him, as an auxiliary; and in very flagrant cases, even two or more, according to the character of the offence to be avenged.

In all cases, the offending party, however clear his guilt may be, is allowed to fight for his life; but in some cases, of course, against such odds as render it next to impossible he should escape. This, the Southlanders observed, was a degree better than the European duels, in which the regulations of our code of honour require the parties, however palpably one of them may be in the wrong, to meet on equal terms, or with an inequality only in favour of the one who may chance to be the better shot or swordsman.

Others of the company entered more fully into the discussion of the general grounds on which duelling is to be reprobated, being cordially joined in their censure by Mr. Jones, who urged the objections, with which every one is familiar, against the wickedness of taking away a fellow-creature’s life, and exposing one’s own, in revenge for a trifling affront—the absurdity of calling it a satisfaction to stand to be shot at, and other such topics, which it is unnecessary to enlarge on, as they may be read in numerous essays and tales, and heard at every tea-table.

The Messrs. Smith, on the other hand (naval men, as has been already mentioned) took the other side, and endeavoured to vindicate the existing code of honour. They urged that it is needless and nugatory to go about to prove that a duel is a bad thing, and that to censure the laws of honour on that ground is as unfair as to censure the law of the land on the ground that imprisonment and hanging are evils, these being the penalties denounced against a violation of the laws.

The requisition to expose one’s life in a duel is, in like manner, the penalty denounced against a violation of the rules established in the society of gentlemen. The law of honour, they said, does not enjoin men to seek a duel as a desirable thing, but, on the contrary, to act in such a manner as to preclude all occasion for an appeal to arms; and that the penalty which any system of rules holds out against the violation of them should be regarded as something to be carefully avoided: this, so far from being an objection to the system, is essential to its maintenance. As for the unfairness of putting the injured and injuring party on a level, that they did not deny; but contended that it was an unavoidable evil, as in the case of war between two independent states. That every war is an evil,—that in every war one party must be in the wrong, and very often both: all this is universally admitted, but all this does not answer the practical question, whether, on the ground that war is an evil, a state should submit, and proclaim itself ready to submit, to any extent of encroachment and aggression from foreign nations without resistance. “If you go to war,” it might be urged, “with those who have wronged you, you put yourself on equal terms with the wrong-doer, and are likely to suffer as much or more than the offending party.” “Very true,” it might be answered, “but we cannot help that; if we could, we would make all the evil of the war fall on the nation that has injured us; but as it is, we must do the best we can to deter our neighbours from injuring us: having no common superior to appeal to, we have no alternative but to fight for our rights, or to be insulted and oppressed with impunity.”

When it was urged in reply, that, though nations have not, individuals have, a common authority to appeal to—that of the community to which they belong, this was roundly denied; and it was contended that the appeal to single combat does not take place in cases when the law of the land provides adequate redress, but in those only where it either cannot or will not afford any, or any but such as would be a mere mockery to the feelings of the sufferer. A man, they urge, does not challenge any one for robbing him of his purse, or for firing his barn, but for injuries of quite a different description, far more grievous to one moving in a certain circle of society, but which the law either refuses to take cognizance of at all, or for which it provides such redress as would aggravate the evil by rendering the sufferer ridiculous. Now a man resigns to the community his natural right of personal self-defence on the implied condition that the community shall protect him; and in cases, therefore, where it either cannot, or will not, fulfil this condition, his original natural right remains unimpaired. Thus, when a man is suddenly assaulted by a robber, he is free to defend his person and property as well as he can; and on the same principle, when the injury is of such a character as the law will not, or cannot, defend him from, he is left to guard his own honour with his own hand.

As to the evils resulting from duels, they observed that it is most unfair not to take into account—though to calculate would be impossible—the immense amount of evils prevented, and which there is reason to suppose would take place but for the apprehension of a duel. The insolence, the falsehood, the slander, the base and the overbearing conduct, which are daily kept in check in many thousands of persons by the recollection that there is such a thing as being “called out” for such behaviour, is what no one can compute with any approach to accuracy; these being preventive and negative effects, and therefore incapable of being calculated, and liable to be underrated.