As soon as Hunter felt the glove in his face he struck out at Benson, who stopped the blow very neatly, and seemed about to return it with a left-hander; then suddenly changing his style of attack, he rushed within the other's guard, and catching him by the throat with both hands, did his best to strangle him. Hunter, unable to call for help or to loosen the throttling grasp of his assailant, threw himself bodily upon him. As he was about twice Benson's size and weight, the experiment succeeded. Harry was thrown off his feet and precipitated against the banisters, which being of slight material, gave way like so much paper, and both men tumbled over into the landing-place below amid a great scattering of splinters. Lighting on their feet, they began to pummel each other without doing more damage than a couple of children, for they were at such close quarters and so blinded by rage that they hit wild; but Benson had caught his man by the throat again and was just getting him into chancery, when White, Sedley, and some of the Southerners, attracted by the noise, ran down stairs, calling on the "gentlemen" to "behave as such," and words proving ineffectual, endeavoring to pull them apart; which was no easy matter, for Benson hung on like grim death, and when his hand was removed from Hunter's collar, caught him again by the nose, nor would he give up till Mr. Simson, who was one of the stoutest and most active men in the place, caught him up from behind and fairly carried him off to the hall below. Then he seemed to come to himself all at once, and recollected that he had invited the remains of "our set" to supper that night. And accordingly, after taking a rapid survey of himself in a glass, and finding that his face bore no mark of the conflict, and that his dress was not more disordered than a man's usually is when he has been polkaing all the evening, he went off to meet his company, and a very merry time they had of it. Ashburner was surprised to find that the spectators of the fray were able to ignore it so completely. If they had been old men and old soldiers, they could not have acted with more discretion, and it was impossible to suspect from their conversation or manner that any thing unpleasant had occurred. "These people do know how to hold their tongues sometimes," thought he.
Next morning while strolling about before breakfast (he was the earliest riser of the young men in the place, as he did not dance or gamble), he heard firing in the pistol-gallery. He thought of his conversation with Benson and the occurrences of last night, and then recollected that he was out of practice himself, and that there would be no harm in trying a few shots. So he strode over to the gallery, and there, to his astonishment, found on one side of the door the keeper, on the other Frank Sumner (who had given a most devoted proof of friendship by getting up two hours earlier in the morning than he had ever been known to do before); and between them Benson, blazing away at the figure, and swearing at himself for not making better shots.
"Take time by the forelock, you see," said he as he recognized Ashburner. "Nunquam non paratus. The fellow will send me a challenge this morning, I suppose, and I want to be ready for him."
"But do you know," said the Englishman, "if after this you should kill your man, we in our country would call it something very like murder?"
"That may be," answered Harry, as he let fly again, this time ringing the bell; "but we only call it practice."
John Adams, in his Diary, states, that out of eight prominent members of the Boston bar in 1763, with whom he was one evening discussing the encroachments of England upon the colonies, only one, Adams himself, lived through the Revolution, as an advocate of American independence. Five adhered to Great Britain: Gridley, Auchmuty, Fitch, Kent, and Hutchinson. Thatcher died in 1765, and Otis became incapacitated in 1771.