The New Hampshire Gazette

It is not strange that no law has yet been made sufficiently strong to repress the practice of duelling. While men are solicitous for the esteem of their associates, however unpleasant it may be to confess the fact, the usage will continue. Courage has always been considered as the property of a noble mind, and with the least imputation of cowardice has always been connected disgrace and the scorn of mankind. The legislator will enact laws and descant on the pernicious practice, the same man, in a private relation, while he laments the individual mischief which it may occasion, gives the culprit his esteem. The matter is viewed in this light by four fifths of mankind. We declaim against the injury which it occasions, and at the same time we feel that we respect the man who is willing to deposit his life to defend his honour. While men cherish these sentiments, while no law can be made, which shall have annexed to it a penalty more disgraceful than the refusal of a challenge, it is idle to attempt to prevent it. Dr. Goldsmith, the well known author of the Vicar of Wakefield, (a work which every man should make his Vade mecum) gives a very just and lively idea of a conflict between this instinctive sense of honour and the suggestions of prudence, in the lecture of Sir William Thornhill to his nephew. The old gentleman, as a magistrate, commends him for his refusal to accept a challenge from the injured son of the vicar, and observes to him, " you have acted in this instance, perfectly well, though not quite as your father would have done. My brother, indeed, was the soul of honour; but thou-" He here represses a sensation which it would be imprudence in him to avow, and proceeds, " yes, you have acted in this instance perfectly right and it meets my warmest approbation." These observations are not intended to defend a practice so prevalent, but as an analysis of the general sense of mankind on the subject.