and patriotic principles against the clamour of mobs and the malice of
enemies. But absurd and barbarous as was the custom, it flourished in
Christian America, as it did in every other Christian country, in
spite of Christian ethics; and it would not permit a proud, sensitive
nature, jealous of his honour, especially of his military honour, to
ignore it. Lorenzo Sabine's list of duellists includes a score of
prominent Englishmen, Frenchmen and Americans, many of them
contemporary with Hamilton, and some of them as profoundly admired,
who succumbed to its tyranny. Proof of his valour at Monmouth and at
Yorktown would no more placate the popular contempt and obloquy sure
to follow an avoidance of its demands than would the victory at
Waterloo have excused Wellington had he declined to challenge Lord
Winchilsea. All this did not make duelling right, but it excuses a
noble soul for yielding "to the force of an imperious custom," as Dr.
Knott put it--a custom that still exists in France and Germany, and in
some parts of America, perhaps, though now universally execrated by
Christian people and pronounced murder by their laws. Even at that
time Hamilton held it in abhorrence. In a paper drawn for publication
in the event of death, he announced his intention of throwing away his
fire, and in extenuation of yielding, he adds: "To those who, with me,
abhorring the practice of duelling, may think that I ought on no
account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my
relative situation, as well in public as in private, enforcing all the
considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate
honour, imposed on me, as I thought, a peculiar necessity not to
decline the call. The ability to be in the future useful, whether in
resisting mischief, or effecting good, in those crises of our public
affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable
from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular."[147] The
pathway of history is strewn with the wrecks of customs and
superstitions which have held men in their grip, compelling obedience
and demanding regularity; but no custom ever had a firmer hold upon
gifted men than duelling, making them its devotees even when their
intellects condemned it, their hearts recognised its cruelty, and
their consciences pronounced it wrong.

[Footnote 147: _Hamilton's Works_ (Lodge), Vol. 8, pp. 626-8.]

Because of Hamilton's engagements in court, the hos