alledges in Court, that fhe was never endowed therewith be his predeceffor, the querel or pley may be decided be fingular battel.' And in lib. 3. cap. 13. ver. 4. Duelling is mentioned as one of the general forms and manners of probation used in Courts. The words are: Ane thing may be proven lawfullie, as debt, or be buying or felling, or as ane lenne, or be the general manner and form of prc. bation, used and obferved in Courts; that is, be writ, or be fingulare bat

tell' !

This custom of fingular combat, in civil as well as in criminal cafes, appears to have continued in force till the time of Robert III. But, by cap. 16. of the ftatutes of that prince, thofe cafes are fpecifically pointed out, in which, and in which only, duelling can have place, and from which civil cafes are altogether excluded. The words of this ftatute are as follows: It is ftatute that, in fingular battell, four things are required: First, That the deed for the quhilk the defender is appealed is capital, and may be punished be the death. Secundlie, That it is quietly and treasonablie done and committed: Thirdlie, That he quha is appealed be halden fufpect, be conjectures, or probable fufpicions, and prefumptions: Fourthlie, That the caufe or controverfie may not be proven, otherways bot be battell, and not be witness, nor be inftruments, letters, or be writ.' Thefe regulations of Robert III. are much the fame with thofe made in France by Philip the Fair, which have been already mentioned; and both point to the dawnings of a more fixed and enlightened jurifprudence. Our legislature in Scotland had a confiderable time before the reign of Robert III. begun to recede from the barbarifm of their ancestors, in regard to judicial trials. Thus, by the cap. 7. § 3. of the ftatutes of Alexander II. it was ordain

ed, That, in time coming, no judgement nor dome fall be done by water or irn, as has been used in auld times." And, in England, as Craig obferves, the trial by ordeal grew rarer and rarer after the fucceffion of William the Norman, to the throne of that kingdom. In both countries, however, the practice of duelling continued to be authorized by the law, long after it had been confined to criminal cafes merely. And hence it is that our legislature, even when providing against that havock of lives, which the uncontrolled liberty of duelling had produced; made the exception of thofe duels allowed by the king; an exception, which, as we obferved above, tends to destroy the energy of the ftatute; and can only be excufed, by the minds, even of lawgivers, being still bound faft in the chains of inveterate custom, which had fanctioned this practice.

There are, in our old law books, a great many regulations refpecting the mode in which thefe judicial duels were to proceed, and a variety of other circumftances concerning them. Thefe, tho' curious enough in themselves, it is not our bufinefs to confider here; whofe only purpose, in entering upon this detail at all, was to afcertain the origin of a practice fo new in the hiftory of mankind, and which, more than any other cuftom, perhaps, diftinguishes modern times from the ages of antiquity. And, having thus feen the origin of this practice, it will be eafier for us to appretiate its character, and to examine the foundation upon which duelling refts, that defpotic authority which tramples under foot every principle of law, reafon, religion, and nature. It would indeed be, in the prefent ftate of manners, a fond and foolish idea, to fnppose, that any effort of reafon, or power of argument, could crush this overbearing vice. Too much has already

been

been faid on this fubject by others, to permit the author of this work to indulge himself in the vain prefumption, that any thing he can fay will prove fufficient, where they have failed. But as the subject of this fection naturally leads to fome general obfervations on a practice, which the laws, of which it treats, condemn and punish, he will venture to add his gleanings to the common ftock, as argument may have fome collateral influence, though it cannot here effectuate its purpose directly.

In the first place, then, it is evident, from the account which has been given of the origin of duelling, an account into which we entered, not from an idea of advancing any thing new, but merely for the purpofe of placing the conclufion that is to be drawn from it, in the cleareft point of light, that this practice can in no way boat' of being founded upon the principles of right reafon, as fome have pretended, fince it fprung up originally among barbarians, and has been propagated through the various nations of modern Europe, by the influence folely of cuftom. It deferves, therefore, the attention of the duellist, who is generally a perfon of what is called a liberal turn of thinking, aud who fpurns at every idea of fuperftition, that fuperftition alone first fanctioned the duel, and that he fubjects himself to the imperious domination of this grovelling principle, when he recurs to duelling as the telt of honour. Who, in our days, would not laugh at the revival of the ridiculous ceremony of the ordeal in the trial of crimes? Yet the ordeal is the twin fifter of the duel, begotten by barbarity upon fuperftition. Shall we then contemn the one, while we venerate the other? Surely both are to be rejected, or neither. It appears alfo, from the account given of the origin of duels, as well as from the evidence

of hiftory, that they were unknown. to the ancients. Some inftances, indeed, there may be, of fomething like fingle combats. And Antony, thus, is faid to have sent a challenge to his rival Auguftus, for deciding by their fwords the fovereignty of the world. But fuch inftances were rare, and indeed were in themselves very different from what we call duels, being propofed only in public concerns, and proceeding from motives of generofity, to prevent the effufion of blood in the political quarrels of contending parties; and they were particularly differenced from our duelling, by this remarkable circumftance, that the challenge might be refused, without any injury to the reputation of the refufer; for Auguftus refufed, and he was applauded for it, the challenge given by Antony. This affords an additional proof, that duelling is no dictate of human reafon; or the glorious difcovery would not have been reserved, like a difcovery in science, to decorate the fame of modern ages.

In the fecond place, it is to be obferved, that duelling evidently can pretend to no plea, in its justification, from the notion that it is a proper punishment for offences; becaufe it is equally abfurd in this view, as the fuperftitious trial by ordeal, depending upon accident equally with it, and even upon the fuppofition that the offender falls, being frequently exceffive in the degree of punishment, the most capital vice into which any punishment can run, as it unhinges the relative order of crimes. With regard to this excefs, a late author fpeaks very fenfibly. • This excefs of punishment, in fome inftances,' fays he, will not be corrected by a defect in others; which happens, for example, when both parties escape unhurt, unless we fuppofe neither of them in any degree culpable. It would be a very weak juftification of

the

corrupted, or the laws feeble, where revenge can overturn every fentiment of morality, and bid defiance to every fanction of law.

To all this, and much more which might be urged to the fame purpose, there is one, and only one plaufible reply The force of custom, and a value for reputation, which the refufal of a challenge is fuppofed to tarnish. And in this plea there is this much, that an excufe may fometimes be found for engaging in a duel, confidering the manners of the age; and accordingly fome men of real honour and virtue have been forced into a duel. But is not this an additional reafon for all honest men combining in an unanimous refo

lution to abolish fo favage a practice, which levels all diftinction of ranks and all diftinction of virtue? Is it not shameful for us to groan under fuch an intolerable thraldom? Muft this plea of honour and reputation filence the voice of Nature weeping in a difconfolate wife, in an aged parent, in a darling child? Muft all the charities of human life bend under the domination of one defpotic principle? Muft the idol cf modern honour be daily gorged with human facrifices? Let, then, the voice of Nature be opposed to the voice of mistaken honour; till it gain the afceadant, we boaft in vain of being free.

SIR

IR William Watson was born in 1715, in St. John's ftreet, near Smithfield. His father was a reputable tradefman in that street, and died leaving him very young. When he had attained to a proper age, he was fent to Merchant Taylor's school, and from thence was bound apprentice to Mr Richardfon, apothecary,

in 1730.

In his youth he had a strong propenfity to the study of natural history, and particularly to that of plants. This led him to make frequent excurfions in a morning feveral miles from London, so that he became early wella cquainted with the loci natales of the indigenous plants of the environs of London; and during his apprenticeship he gained the honorary premium given annually, by the apothecaries company, to fuch young men as exhibit a fuperiority in the knowledge of plants, in those excurfions made by the demonftrator of Chelsea garden, and inftituted for the purpofe of initiating the apprentices of the company in a fcience fo

This

neceffary to the profeffion. premium confifted of a handfomely bound copy of Ray's Synopfis, which was afterwards changed for Hudson's Flora Anglica.

In 1738 Mr Watfon married, and fet up in business for himself as an apothecary. His fkill, his activity, and diligence in his profeffion, foon diftinguished him among his acquaintance, as did his tafte for Natural Hiftory, and his general knowledge of philofophical fubjects among the members of the Royal Society, of which honourable body he was elected a member early in the year 1741; his two first communications being printed in the XLI. Volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions.

Soon after his admiffion into the Royal Society, Mr Watfon distinguished himself as a botanift; and it is but doing juftice to his memory to remark, that even at this period he may be confidered as having, in no fmall degree, contributed to fuftain and revive in England the ftudy of that fcience; which, after the death of

the

the two. Sherrards, and the decline and retirement of Sir Hans Sloane, had begun to languish in this country. He ever remained a zealous patron and encourager of it. Naturalifts of eminence from abroad brought letters. of recommendation to Mr Watson, and they ever met with thofe civilities from him, which entitled him to their efteem, and fecured him the most honourable teftimonies of their refpect in their writings. He fhewed the utmost attention to profeffor Kalm, when he was here in 1748, by introducing him to the curious gardens, and accompanying him in feveral bo tanical excurfions in the environs. The same civilities he manifefted to the prefent eminent Dr Pallas of Petersburgh, during his abode in England, from July 1761 to April 1762.

Mr Watson's earliest paper on the fubject of Botany, was an account of the celebrated Haller's Enumeratio Stirpium Helvetia, extracted from the Latin, and illuftrated with a confpectus of Haller's method, and with various obfervations. This was printed in the Philofophical Tranfactions, vol. XLII. p. 336-80.

In the fame volume, p. 599, and the fucceeding volume, page 51, he excited the attention of the curious, in this way, by fome critical remarks on the Rev. Mr Pickering's paper, concerning the feeds of muthrooms, which that gentleman having feen a fhort time before, confidered as a new discovery; whereas Mr Watfon fhewed that they had been demonftrated feveral years prior to that period, by M. Micheli, in his Nova Plantarum Genera. Flor. 1729. But that which attracted the attention of foreign botanifts particularly, was his defcription of a rare and elegant fpecies of fungus, called from its form geafter. This was written in Latin, and accompanied with an engraving.

In the fame volume alfo, page 18, he inferted fome very inftructing ob

fervations on the cicuta, or common hemlock, occafioned by the death of two of the Dutch foldiers at Waltham Abbey, which happened in con fequence of their having eaten this herb inftead of greens.

F

The death of two of the French. prifoners, in 1746, occafioned by their eating the roots of the hemlock dropwort, produced from Mr Watfon a paper, which, in an eminent manner, exemplified his skill in the knowledge of plants. It abounds with curious, and critical obfervations on that plant, and the cicuta virofa, with which it had been frequently confounded, as both had alfo been mistaken for water parfnip. It is accompanied with an engraving of the plants by Mr Ehret. Some years after, in 1758, Mr Watfon had occafion to confirm the fatal effects of this plant, by the death of a perfon at Havant, in Hampshire, from having taken the juice of the root instead of that of the water parfnip.

In vol. XLV. page 564-578, is printed a tranflation by Mr Watson, of a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, from Dr Garcin of Neufchatel, containing a complete hiftory of the Cyprefs, or Alcanna of the ancients, called by Linnæus Lawsonia inermis, fo famous for its use, both in medicine and as a dye, all over the eaft, infomuch, that at Conftantinople the duty on it amounts to 18,000 ducats annually.

In 1746, in company with Dr Michell, he examined the remains of the garden at Lambeth, formerly belonging to the Tradefcants, men famous in their day for being the first collectors of fubjects in natural hiftory. There Mr Watfon found the Arbutus, the Cupreffus Americana, and other exotics, in a vigorous ftate, after having fuftained the winters of this climate for 120 years.

In vol. LXVII. p. 169, are printed fome very curious and interefting particulars relating to the fexes of plants, which tend to confirm the truth of

2

that