d to look up to Lord Temple
as the statesman who best understood the circumstances and wants of the
country, was Colonel Martin, the owner of the vast estates of Connemara,
who afterwards acquired a special reputation in the Imperial Parliament,
by his Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. At the period when
he was in correspondence with Lord Temple, the humanity for which he was
subsequently distinguished did not, it is said, extend to his own
species; for no man, in a land notorious for feudal violence, enjoyed a
wider celebrity as a duellist. From a letter written in the July of this
year, the following extract may be inserted, as being strikingly
characteristic both of the writer and the state of society over which,
in those belligerent days, men of such grave temperaments as the
Grenvilles were called upon to preside.

You have perhaps heard already of my affair at Castlebar with
Mr. Fitzgerald. On the 14th I went to Castlebar, where with some
difficulty and after the use of language not very consonant to
my feelings, I prevailed on Mr. Fitzgerald to meet me in the
barrack-yard. When I took my first ground, I was distant about
eight yards from him, but on his declaring in a vaunting manner
that we were not near enough, I told him he should not have
reason to complain on that head, and accordingly I advanced
within less than five yards to him, and said he had it in his
power to make it much nearer. We both fired about the same time;
he missed me, but my shot entered his waistcoat and passed along
his breast and grazed his arm. He then called to me not to fire
again until he recovered his pistol, on which I declared I would
wait any time he chose. When he was ready, we fired as before;
my shot hit him just above the waistband of his breeches and got
out on the opposite side of his waistcoat. I was wounded in the
breast, but very slightly; and I am at present so well as to be
able to travel anywhere in my carriage.

Mr. Fitzgerald shows his clothes to every person, but declares
he is not wounded; for my part, I will not declare my reasons
for believing him to be unhurt. On the ground he declared
himself sorry for the offence, and that he was _wounded_. For
the last I declared my sorrow, so everything ended.

Although Lord Temple throughout this year, as he observes in one of his
letters, "lived too little in the