Willis had this letter lithographed and sent copies to seven of his particular friends, to clear his character, as he said, in his own immediate circle, of the aspersions in Marryat’s article. The reply to this demand was a long letter, under date of January 21st, declining to make any apology until Willis had publicly withdrawn his remark in the “Mirror” about Marryat’s gross trash selling about Wapping, etc., which, said the latter, amounted by implication to an attack on his private character; denying, furthermore, that _he_ had attacked _Willis’s_ private character. “The observations made by you upon my writings must be considered as more or less injurious in proportion to the rank in society and estimation of the person who made them.… It was therefore necessary, in this instance, to point out that the critic had not been accustomed to good society.… Now this, if true, is no crime, and therefore the remark can be no attack upon private character.” Willis accepted this explanation, in a second letter to Marryat, and then sent the entire correspondence to the “Times” for publication. Marryat was furious at this, and wrote at once to Willis, “I refuse all explanation--insist upon immediate satisfaction--and that you forthwith repair to Ostend to meet me.” If the captain thought that his opponent was a dandy poet, who would be afraid to face his pistol, he mistook his man. “The puppies will fight,” said the Duke. Willis was no shot, and the only weapon that he knew how to handle was his pen, but he never showed any want of personal courage. The correspondence that followed this challenge was long and tedious. The documents in the case are a score in number and need not be reproduced here. The substance of these various protocols and formalities was as follows. Willis answered Marryat’s letter, explaining why he had thought right to publish the first three letters that had passed between them, accepting his challenge, in case he found this explanation insufficient, but claiming his privilege, as the challenged party, to name some place in England for the meeting. Meanwhile a duplicate of Marryat’s challenge had been handed to Willis by the former’s “friend,” a Mr. F. Mills, and Willis had referred him to _his_ friend, Captain Walker, and had agreed to waive his right to name a place, and to meet Marryat at Ostend. Mr. Mills and Captain Walker finally adjusted the matter and arranged a basis for an amicable settlement. But while these negotiations were pending, Marryat, on the receipt of Willis’s letter of explanation, withdrew his challenge in a letter dated February 9th, which he sent to the “Times,” along with his challenge and Willis’s reply to it. The terms of this withdrawal Willis considered insulting, and the publication of the challenge after it had been agreed upon between the friends of the parties that Marryat “should entirely withdraw the offensive letter containing his challenge,” he regarded as a further insult.