4. A Duel of 1807 (2)
The Cause for the Dispute
On the evening of June 23rd the brigadier in command of the district, General Kerr, had been dining at the Mess of the 2/21st. He left very early, as did Colonel Adam and many other officers. Of those that remained few “drank fair”, and all but four finally drifted away. These four were Campbell, Boyd, a Lieutenant Hall, and Mr. Adams, the assistant surgeon of the battalion. It was proved that but little wine for so large a company appeared to have been consumed; but those who remained to the last got more than their share; and, as Campbell writes, “it is true that we were on that fatal evening a little elevated with drink”. The conversation had got on to pure “shop”—Boyd and Campbell fell to discussing drill, and more especially an order which the Brigadier had corrected at the inspection that morning. Boyd said that General Kerr, and Campbell also, had been wrong.
They argued on this trivial subject for some time, till both grew somewhat warm and noisy, and at last the captain said: “I know better than you, Major Campbell, and you may take that as you choose. The words, according to the witnesses, were spoken in an irritating manner. Campbell rose from his seat, and, approaching the other, said: “Then, Captain Boyd, you say that I am wrong?” To which Boyd replied: “I do say that you are wrong. I know that I am right according to the King’s Regulations”. Upon which Major Campbell walked out of the room.
It seems almost incredible that the lives of two middle-aged officers of long service should have been lost over a dispute on a small technical point, which could have been settled in two minutes by a reference to “Dundas”, of which many copies must have been lying about the barracks. The three last lingerers over the port dispersed, about ten or twelve minutes after Campbell had left the mess-room. Boyd came down alone, and was surprised to find the major waiting for him near the head of the staircase. Campbell had spent these twelve minutes not, as one might have expected, in verifying the disputed point in the Drill Book, but in stamping round the barrack square: “he was extremely irritated, and if he had chanced to meet any friend he would probably have sent him with a message of no amicable nature (i.e. a challenge) to Captain Boyd”.
But cooling a little, as he says, and reflecting that senior officers and married men should not set an example of violence to subalterns, he resolved to wait for the captain, and to tell him “in an amicable fashion” that he was convinced that the words used were not deliberately intended to hurt his feelings, and that all would be forgotten if Boyd would say so much before the two young men who had been present.
This may have been a well-intended idea, but it was certainly ill-judged. Both parties had drunk too much, and nothing was to be gained by a second interview, while the wine was still working, Boyd, on hearing that Campbell required an apology before the two juniors, answered, “with a fierce and haughty eagerness”, that he would do no such thing, and that the major might proceed as he thought proper. At this Campbell, surprised (as he says) and irritated, told him that his conduct was absurd and unreasonable, with some warmth and in a rather loud tone of voice. Boyd replied: “I am not to be bullied, sir—you need not speak so loud—unless indeed you want to be overheard”. This Campbell took as an insinuation that he was accused of making a noise in order to attract the attention of other officers, who would probably intervene and take them apart. The words, however, bear equally well, and more naturally, the interpretation that Boyd wished to avoid public brawling. But Campbell, as he acknowledged, was so fired by what he took to be Boyd’s meaning that he clapped his hand to his sword, “as he believes with the intention of drawing instantly”, not observing in the dusk that the captain had no weapon with him. At the best this was an invitation to a scuffle with swords in the dark, a proceeding contrary to every rule of the contemporary code.
Boyd, however flushed he may have been, had full control of a very biting tongue: he remarked in a sneering tone: “Do you wish to assassinate me, sir? Only cowards draw on an unarmed man.” At which Campbell, “stung to the soul”, as he says, bowed, took off his hat with a wide salute, observed that such an idea could never have come into the mind of a gentleman, and that he would leave the choice of weapons to Captain Boyd. The latter, in his sarcastic tone, replied: “I don’t care a damn what the weapons are—slugs in a saw-pit, in a minute, if you choose it.” The major, quite beside himself, and choosing to take Boyd’s words as a challenge to a duel on the spot, observed that ten minutes would suit him, and bade the captain name the place. Boyd made no answer, and walked downstairs to the barrack yard, without further words, though Campbell shouted twice across the stairs to him to bid him name a place. Apparently the captain expected a formal challenge by way of seconds to follow.
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