Code Duello (2 results)

114, [1], [1 errata] pp. Bound in modern plain wrappers, old rubberstamp on title page, two light blindstamps. Light scattered foxing. Good+. The Code Duello is well-reflected in this outraged denunciation of two participants in a duel who agreed to testify in a court martial of their opponents. The prefatory Advertisement explains 'Editor's' reason for publishing this account of one of those "petty questions of private, and personal disputes among the Officers of a Regiment." Such matters, "seldom of any peculiar interest, beyond the limited sphere of their immediate operation, are rarely presented to the notice of the public." This case, however, is different: Patullo and Hitchins have been "prevailed upon, by a promise of personal indemnity, to assume the contemptible character of informers, or King's Evidence, against two other officers, their opponents, in such duel." Such conduct is "subversive of all those principles of honor, and confidence, which have heretofore regulated the conduct of gentlemen." They have inflicted "a deep, and deadly wound, at those received principles, of mutual confidence, and honor, which form the basis, and the cement of civil society!" OCLC 69672299 [1- DLC] [as of December 2015].…

[4], 42, [2 blanks], with half title and final blank. Fine, in modern speckled cloth. The author, evidently an expert on the etiquette of the Law of Honor, explains that military officers must, "in a pre-eminent degree, be jealous of their character, and peculiarly quick in the perception of those circumstances which may impart the slightest soil to the purity of their reputation." The duel between Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, and Lieutenant Colonel Lenox was "the most unprecedented and most singular in its nature and circumstances." The Duke had remarked that "language had been used at D'Aubigny's Club toward Lenox, to which no gentleman ought to submit." When the Duke refused, "in terms of haughty defiance," to disclose the identity of the source, Lenox in vain sought the information from each member of D'Aubigny's. Lenox "had now a right to conclude, that the Duke of York was himself the author of the calumny." Lenox challenged; the Duke accepted, simultaneous pistol fire being the agreed weapon. But, as the Duke had privately advised his seconds, he had no intention of shooting. The Duke, who claimed no animosity toward Lenox, reserved his fire [DNB says the Duke fired into the air]. Lenox's bullet grazed the Duke. In a long discourse on the elaborate formalities of the Duel, the author vindicates Lenox's honor and denounces the Duke's "duplicity and deceit." ESTC T11100.…