After this fatal affair the custom of duelling died out almost entirely in the colony. Had there been many of these encounters frequent mention beyond doubt would have been made of them. Any deaths resulting from them could hardly have escaped mention in the records, and the general interest that always attaches itself to such affairs would have caused them to find a place in the writings of the day. Beverley, Hugh Jones, John Clayton and other authors who described the customs of colonial Virginia made no mention of duelling. Only a few scattered instances of challenges and encounters have been collected, gleaned largely from the county records, and these serve to show that duelling met with but little favor. Most of the challenges were not accepted and provoked usually summary and harsh punishment at the hands of the law. In 1643 a commissioner was disabled from holding office for having challenged a councillor.[83] Some years later Capt. Thomas Hackett sent a challenge by his son-in-law, Richard Denham, to Mr. Daniel Fox, while the latter was sitting in the Lancaster County court. The message was most insulting in its wording and ended by declaring that if Fox "had anything of a gentleman or manhood" in him he would render satisfaction in a personal encounter with rapiers. One of the justices, Major Carter, was horrified at these proceedings. He addressed Denham in words of harsh reproval, "saying that he knew not how his father would acquit himself of an action of that nature, which he said he would not be ye owner of for a world." Denham answered in a slighting way "that his father would answer it well enough ... whereupon ye court conceivinge ye said Denham to be a partye with his father-in-law ... adjudged ye said Denham to receive six stripes on his bare shoulder with a whip." The course pursued by Fox in this affair is of great interest. Had duelling been in vogue he would have been compelled to accept the challenge or run the risk of receiving popular contempt as a coward. He could not have ignored the message on grounds of social superiority, for Hackett ranked as a gentleman. Yet he requested the court to arrest Hackett, "him to detain in safe custody without baile or mainprize," in order to save himself from the risk of a personal attack.[84] A similar case occurred in 1730, when Mr. Solomon White entered complaint in the Princess Anne County court against Rodolphus Melborne for challenging him "with sword and pistoll." The court ordered the sheriff to arrest Melborne and to keep him in custody until he entered bond in the sum of 50 pounds as security for good behavior for twelve months.[85]