Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

For The Alexandria Daily Gazette:

"And Abner said again to Asahel, turn thee aside from following me; wherefore should I smite thee to the ground?"
2d Sam. 2. 22.

THIS was a wholesome caution; and coming from one who possessed such ample means of executing the alternative, it were to be supposed any prudent person would have availed himself of it. Abner was a veteran soldier, well taught by long experience in the use of the arms with which he was completely accoutred; and he was retreating for his life. Asahel was a hair-brained youth, far better supplied with blood and sinews than with economy and cool calculation: he was clad in no armor, and possibly had no arms in his hands; but being "light of foot as a wild roe," vainly supposed that to overtake was to conquer; and to conquer a Generalissimo, was to establish himself forever as a man of courage and be the envy of his compatriots.

The trophies gained by Abner's arm were sufficiently manifest; he was not covetous for this small addition; he knew the odds that the young desperado had to encounter, and he warned him the second time, like a friend, to keep away. No doubt the following ideas resolved in the mind of the magnanimous warrior--I have seen your virtues in private life; you are a young man of promise, and may yet be the solace of your friends, and a use and ornament in society in his mature age; why will you insist on this combat; has the pitched battle, this eventful day, between twelve of your warriors and twelve of mine, wherein not a man on either side escaped, got out of your memory so soon; do you determine to add your death to the catastrophe? "Turn thee aside from following me, wherefore should I smite thee to the ground?" To this advice, generous and even pathetic as it was, Asahel was by no means inclined to lend an ear, but darting upon him--as "the horse rusheth into the battle," fell a prey to his own temerity; and I venture to assert that he enjoyed no very pleasing reflections at his exit.

But if Asahel, who was fighting the battles of his king whom he loved, and who was placed over him by the first authority, died foolishly, how much more so must the modern Chevaliers sneak out of life, by their fatal adherence to that custom, which is so repugnant to reason, so fully exploded by laws of society, and so abhorrent of God and man!

I am at a loss to account for that etiquette which indulges the culprit in an equal participation at the dreadful resort; and puts it again in his power to renew his audacity; and possibly to rob of his life, whom he has already robbed of his peace!

The second or middle grade of Duelists are a sect somewhere between the man of genuine intrepidity and the downright dastard; sometimes both inclusive. They are actuated by the same incentive that spurred on the hot-headed Asahel; namely, the unquenchable desire of being dubbed a man of undoubted courage; and the expectation of attaining it this way at cheap and expeditious rate; hence they disdain to put in practice that eminent christian precept, as well as first requisite to the formation of a complete gentleman, namely, doing to others as they would wish to be done unto. They labor often under this most erroneous opinion; that there is a meanness attached to the confessing our trespass to our neighbor, and requesting him to overlook it! So far from it, this overture is not only the essence of good breeding, but is the pleasing practice of every real gentleman, and, the very part, too, that he is most tenacious in the performance of.

HOPE, that delusive little urchin, lures on these purblind gentry, and spreads behind them a thousand loop holes for retreat, such as--your man will not accept your invitation to the fashionable tribunal, or, that he will make acknowledgments when there, or from the interposition of friends--of authority--the connivance of seconds, in the most weighty part of their duty, or from some other fortune, that always favors the brave, you will be able to push once in your life through the "ordeal" with a whole skin.

This sect are a pretty generous forgiving sort of people;--they do not "meet" so much on that unrelenting principle, thirsting for the blood of their adversary, as for the rich harvest of fame that awaits them. But before the wreath can set easy and becoming on their brow, in the estimation of the thinking part of the community, it will be necessary that they solve a little enigma which their mode of management has put forth: this is it;--Tommy, assaults Tommy; --Tommy, always tremblingly alive for the fate of his honor, cannot brook a single assault, so "calls out" Tommy! Tommy assaults him a second time, by trying to blow his brains out; Tommy then forgives Tommy, and Tommy and Tommy shake hands: now what atonement has Tommy received for the insult?

There may be something potent in the smell of gunpowder and the firing it off, to effect reconciliations;--the former may communicate a kind of ague like that of Belshazzar, when his knees smote one against another; and the latter may discharge all resentment with the wad, and a noble, forgiving temper may suddenly succeed;--or, the party may at this sober crisis, think proper to be actuated by the christian doctrine, of turning the other cheek, when the right is smote: these however are mere conjectures:

The low grade is as scarce as the non-descript gentleman, so ridiculous to describe, an excrescence carried by

of that magnitude, perhaps, that one breath of explanation would evaporate it: he first informs himself whether this neighbor principles do not allow him to trifle with would accept a challenge--finding that his apparently "big with the fate of Rome:" IMMORTAL THINGS, he strides off. and in a most public and blustering manner brings a pair of weapons, and offers one to his neighbor, in the street, with vollies of incoherent gasconade; which, of course, according to his just calculation, brings about them a sufficient number of good citizens to stop any further operations. This is the safest way of acquiring glory as a Duelist; there is no possible danger in this mode- the only disagreeable thing attending, it is, that the public unfortunately have discernment enough to see through the whole plot, and the shallow ass, for presuming to palm it on them for genuine, evinces so palpably his want of sense, that he becomes the butt, the sport and pity of all who know him!

After sincerely craving pardon of the grave reader for the levity which I deemed almost indispensible in the description of some of these "lads of metal," I will make some remarks on the practice of duelling generally. The determined votary to this kind of chivalry has mild appellations when he is called a desperado and a madman!-- We entitle the gamester to these, who ventures all he has in this world to the issue of a single chance; but what comparison does he bear to him, who, with the most studied indifference to the amazing value of the stake, throws up his interest in this world and that which is TO COME? Not the small dust of the balance! The loser here may retrieve his fortunes at a future day; but him who is discomfited in that game, never retrieves! He goes where there is no work, nor device, NOR RETRIEVING!

It is impossible that a man of this stamp, ever sat down, and seriously counted the cost, according to the understanding that he possessed; whether he be a Christian, a Deist, or (if there is such a creature) an Atheist; as in either case there is such an INFINITE DISPARITY in the object sought, and the risque of seeking it! Is he confirmed in his belief of divine revelation? Then, sent out of life in his own way, he intrudes himself uncalled, a wanton offender of one of its severest laws; contemptuously giving up his talent that he had buried; and virtually saying, "there thou hast that is thine," a useless donation for which I thank thee not!

Is he a Deist? Then he having frustrated the great design of his creation--flying in the very teeth of every reasonable conception he can form of the Divine Attribute, and evincing an aggravating disregard of the first great act of beneficence to man; is, most clearly, meet for his utmost displeasure! Is he an Atheist? He exchanges a certainty of life, which produces, by the acknowledgment of the most cavilling misanthrope, in its chequered vicissitudes, some pleasant incidents, some fair prospects --vernal springs--interesting meanders-- happy consummations--something, along the road, that prevents him from crying "all is barren": he exchanges this for an uncertainty; and, to put the best face on it, takes a frightful leap in the dark! What a proud, persevering, inconsistent, noble little animal is man! Cross him, and he will jeopardize his very soul for revenge; touch n, and he will scent you to the antipodes our blood!

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