But it is time to inquire a little more minutely into the so-called blunder, which the Englishmen say was the cause of their defeat. And here it is but fair to give their statement in their own words. The Quarterly reviewer says—
"Perhaps the most remarkable instance on record of a strict enforcement of the tenor of chess law occurred in the celebrated match, by correspondence, between the London and Edinburgh Clubs. At the 27th move of the second game, the London Club threw a rook away. How they did so, Mr Lewis explains in the following words:—'The 26th, 27th, and 28th moves were sent on the same day to the Edinburgh Club. This was done to save time. It so happened that the secretary, whose duty it was to write the letters, had an engagement which compelled him to leave the Club two hours earlier than usual—the letter was therefore posted at three instead of five o'clock. In the mean time, one of the members discovered that the 2d move (the 27th) had not been sufficiently examined.[10] An application was immediately made at the Post-office for the letter, which was refused. In consequence, a second letter was transmitted by the same post to the Edinburgh Club, retracting the 2d and 3d moves, and abiding only by the first. The Edinburgh Club, in answer, gave it as their decided opinion that the London Club were bound by their letter, and that no move could be retracted: they therefore insisted on the moves being played. The London Club conceded the point, though they differed in opinion.'
"We cannot but think, under all the circumstances, the Edinburgh Club were to blame. What rendered the mishap more vexatious to the Londoners was, that whereas they had a won game before, they now barely lost it, and thereby the match, which the winning of this game would have decided in their favour. There can be little doubt that the London Club (then comprising Messrs Lewis, Fraser, and Cochrane) was the strongest of the two. On the part of Edinburgh, we believe the lion's share of the work fell to the late Mr Donaldson."
In the remarks on the London and Amsterdam match, in Mr Staunton's periodical, (the Chess-Player's Chronicle,) for February 1850, there is the following passage:—
"If the relative skill of the competitors engaged on each side were to be the gauge by which to estimate the probable result of a contest like this, it would have been easy to predict to which party victory would incline; and we should have wondered at the daring gallantry that prompted the little band of Hollanders to challenge the leviathans of London. Experience, however, has shown that, in a match of chess by correspondence, the battle is not always to the strong, and that foresight and profound calculation are of infinitely less account, when the men may be moved experimentally, than they are in ordinary chess, where conclusions must be tried by the head, and not by the hand. Of this, indeed, the archives of the London Club afford a memorable instance. In March 1824, a proposal was made to this Club by the Club at Edinburgh, to play a match at chess by correspondence for a silver cup; the match to consist of three games, (irrespective of drawn games;) two games to be played together, and the winner of the first game to have the move in the third. The London Club at this period was in the pride and plenitude of its strength, and the committee appointed to conduct the match comprised every name of note among the chess-players of the metropolis. The Edinburgh Chess-Club, on the other hand, was composed of amateurs comparatively unknown and inexperienced, and possessed one player only—the late Mr Donaldson—capable of making anything like a stand 'over the board' with any of the London chiefs. In an ordinary contest, indeed, over the board, it was the old odds of Lombard Street to a China orange! Maugre all the advantages of superior skill and practice, however, the Londoners lost the battle, and lost it by a blunder as ridiculous as it was vexatious, at the very moment, too, when the game was in their hands."
The general remarks on playing by correspondence in this last passage are evidently made to furnish a pretence for introducing the notice of the London and Edinburgh match; and they share the fate of all such forced work. They are absolute nonsense. The probability that a decidedly superior will overcome an inferior player, is not at all diminished by the circumstance that the match is played by correspondence. On the contrary, we should rather be inclined to say that the chance of an inferior player's escape in a single game or so is almost extinguished where the match is played by correspondence; because the time given for deliberation increases the improbability of his antagonist's erring from carelessness, or not taking in the whole position of the game, which sometimes occurs in playing over the board. But there is an inconsequence in the whole argument which surprises us to find in anything sanctioned by a person of Mr Staunton's unquestionable powers of mind. The loss of the match by London is not to be wondered at, it is said, because it was a match by correspondence; and the immediate cause of their losing it was the commission of a ridiculous and vexatious blunder! To make this anything like logic, it would be necessary to hold that ridiculous and vexatious blunders are more likely to be committed when the player has time and opportunity to consider his moves, and to make experiments upon their effect, than where he is under the necessity of moving at once in presence of an adversary, and possibly of spectators, apt to get impatient at long delay. It is plain that the game's being played by correspondence was the very circumstance calculated to render the London Club's particular excuse for losing all the more untenable.
It is quite true, however, that at a particular stage of the game opened by the London Club, (being one of the two games with which the match commenced,) the London Club might have won the game, by playing other moves than they did. This may be said of every game; but it is as unusual as it is unhandsome for the unsuccessful party, merely because he has missed such an opportunity of winning, to refuse all credit to his adversary for afterwards defeating him. In the third game, which was drawn, the Edinburgh Club would have won if they had played a different 51st move from that which they did. But this did not lead them to make depreciatory remarks about their antagonists: all that their report bears on this point is, that the London Club "conducted a difficult defence with great skill and dexterity, and finally succeeded in drawing the game."
Further, the remarks above quoted are calculated to produce an erroneous idea respecting the situation and conduct of the two clubs in the second game. The sophistry consists in mixing up two entirely separate and unconnected things. In this same game in which the London Club failed to observe that they had a winning position, they applied to have two of their moves recalled after they were despatched, and the Edinburgh committee refused their request. Now the obvious tendency of all that the English writers say upon the subject is to create the impression that if the London Club had been allowed to recall these two moves, they would have retained their winning position. This is plainly the only construction that the passage in the Quarterly Review is capable of bearing. It is the only construction which would justify his remarks, or make them at all intelligible. But it is quite incorrect. The only moves which the London committee wished to recall were the 27th and 28th; but they have never attempted to show that if they had been allowed to do so, they could have won the game. It has been demonstrated, over and over again, that they could not. In fact, the moves they wished to recall were as good as any others then in their power. They might have drawn the game if these moves had been played; and they could have done no more had they been allowed to recall them. This matter was set at rest while the match was still pending, by a proposal which emanated from the Edinburgh Club. When the Londoners lost the game, Mr Lewis insinuated, though he did not expressly state, that if they had not been held to the 27th and 28th moves, they would have won the game. A member of the Edinburgh Club then offered to play a back-game with any one or more of the London Club, in which the London players were to be allowed a new 27th move instead of the one they had made, and wished to recall; and also another back-game in which the Edinburgh player was to take the London side at an earlier stage of the game, with the view of showing that, by playing differently, the London Club might have won it. This proposal was under consideration of the London Club for several weeks, during which they satisfied themselves that the recall of the 27th and 28th moves would be of no use, and, accordingly, it was declined. It is surely not very uncharitable to surmise that it was during this period, and on the suggestion of their opponents, that they discovered that the error was not in the 27th move which they had proposed to recall, but in the 26th, which they had examined and adhered to. In his first publication of the games, Mr Lewis gives no back-game on this 26th move; and it is believed that no member of the London Club was aware, till the game was finished, that by playing differently at the 26th move they might have won it. But Mr Lewis admits that the game could not be won by a mere alteration of the 27th or 28th move; and any one who says that it could, is either speaking in ignorance of the subject, or is making a wilful misrepresentation. The likelihood of the remarks of the English writers producing an erroneous impression arises from their mixing up these two separate and distinct things: 1st, that at a previous stage of the game, the London Club had a winning position which they did not discover, and failed to avail themselves of; and, 2d, that the Edinburgh Club would not allow them to retract the 27th and 28th moves. These two facts have no longer any possible connection with each other when it is known that, at the 27th move, the London Club had ceased to have a winning position, and that the recall of that move would have been of no use to them. The failure, at a previous stage of the game, to maintain the winning position which they had, is simply one among several illustrations which occurred in the match, of the truth that the London Club, "in the pride and plenitude of its strength," did not always play as well as it was possible to have done. How such things show that superiority on the part of London, which they are brought forward to establish, we confess ourselves unable to understand, unless we were to adopt the principle of the Chess-Players' Chronicle, that it is the best players who are most likely to commit errors in conducting a match by correspondence!!
It seems to be a source of melancholy consolation to the English players, that their Club committed a "ridiculous and vexatious blunder." We are sorry that, in our strict regard for truth, we must deprive them even of that comfort. The losing of the disputed game was not a ridiculous blunder, however vexatious. On the contrary, the series of moves by which they lost the chance of winning, was at first a very promising attack, and had the additional temptation of appearing brilliant and enterprising. If any chess-player will set up the men at the 27th move of the London Club, or glance at the diagram given in Mr Staunton's periodical for May 1850, he will see that nothing but the utmost skill and caution on the part of Edinburgh could have successfully warded off the attack. The London Club had not contemplated the defence which they met with; and if, in these circumstances, they were seduced into an ingenious but unsound attack, it may be conceded that they manifested want of circumspection, an important qualification in a chess-player; but they cannot be accused of committing a ridiculous blunder. They talk of having "thrown away" a rook. They did no such thing. The rook was played not by mistake, but for the very purpose of being taken in the course of their dashing but unsuccessful attack. And in Mr Lewis's analyses, it will be found that many of his methods of winning, at previous stages of the game, involve this very sacrifice of the rook.
The refusal of the Edinburgh Club to allow the recall of the 27th and 28th moves loses all its importance when it is known that it did not affect the fate of the game. But we should in any circumstances be sorry to believe that, in so refusing, they had done what deserved the censure bestowed on them by the Quarterly reviewer. In considering the propriety of their conduct, there are only two lights in which the request may be viewed. They were either asked to do what the London Club had a right to demand, or they were asked to grant a favour to the London Club. We do not know that the former view is supported by any of the English writers. Even the Quarterly reviewer does not say that the London Club had a right to recall the moves; and on this question of right it appears to us that there cannot be the least shadow of a doubt. The letter containing the moves was despatched to the Post-office. It was held by the Post-office for the party to whom it was addressed, and was entirely beyond the control of the party sending it. The piece, in every sense, was therefore "let go" by the player; and the 8th Article of Sarratt's laws of chess, by which it was agreed that the games should be played, provides that "as long as a player holds a piece, he is at liberty to play it where he chooses; but when he has let it go, he cannot recall his move." Accordingly, the London Club never attempted to contest the question of right. They stated that they had "no hesitation in acceding to the Edinburgh Committee's construction," and adhering to the moves. In fact, the construction put on the point by the Edinburgh Club was not only assented to by the London players at the time, but several members of the committee admitted afterwards, that it was unquestionably the right way of dealing with the case, and no member of the London Club ever hinted a complaint on the subject, except what was insinuated by Mr Lewis in the publication referred to.
Were the Edinburgh Club "to blame" for not granting the favour which was asked of them? On this question we think there is quite as little doubt as the other. We have a strong and decided opinion as to the necessity of strict play in all games. It is the only fair and rational system; for once allow indulgence, and it is impossible to fix the limit at which it should stop. But we think that the remark applies with peculiar force to the game of chess, in which rigour is absolutely essential to the acquisition of the habits fitted for the proper playing of the game. Above all, in an important match at chess, anything but the strict game is entirely out of the question. A high-spirited antagonist will scorn to ask a favour, or even to grumble about the commission of a blunder. He submits in silence, and plays on in the hope of retrieving his fault by redoubled care and attention. If, on the other hand, he were to be expected to grant favours to his blundering antagonist, it is plain that his very good qualities would be turned to his disadvantage in the match. The Edinburgh Club played in the belief that the rules of the game were to apply with equal strictness to both parties; and though there was more than one instance in which they would have been glad to recall a move, they never proposed this, or even spoke of the occasions for it, except in answer to Mr Lewis's observations on the proposed recall of the 27th move. In the very game in which this move was made, the Edinburgh committee had at a previous point in the game made a move which they discovered to be unsound, or at least doubtful. Their report bears that "application was made to the Post-office to have the letter containing it restored, but without effect. Finding this to be the case, the letter was looked upon as delivered, the Post-office being regarded as holding it, not on behalf of the Club from which it had been sent, but on behalf of the Club to which it was addressed; and therefore no attempt was made to countermand the move, by transmitting another letter by the same post. The 8th article of the laws was considered to be too clear and explicit to warrant a recall." This conduct of the Edinburgh Club appears to us the manly and proper way of dealing with such a circumstance, and infinitely better than trying to make it the foundation of a complaint of rigorous procedure on the part of their opponents.