Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
Mendoza, in the year 1806, again introduced himself to the notice of the
public in a diffuse correspondence, arising out of a personal quarrel
with Harry Lee. Those curious may read the whole in “Boxiana,” vol. i.
pp. 272‒276. We learn from it incidentally that Dan, after his
retirement from the ring, was an officer of the Sheriff of Middlesex, a
favourite Jewish calling in the days of arrest on mesne process and of
sponging-houses. Harry, in his last letter, accepts the challenge of
Dan, which is all we care about the quarrel.
Harry was well known as an elegant sparrer, but his ring capabilities
were untried. He was also taller, younger, and more active than the
veteran Dan.
On March 21, 1806, at Grinstead Green, a short distance beyond Bromley,
in Kent, the combatants met, and 50 guineas were the stakes deposited.
It was a roped ring of twenty-five feet. Mendoza had for his second his
old opponent and firm friend, Bill Warr, and for his bottleholder, Bill
Gibbons; Harry Lee was attended by the Game Chicken and John Gully. The
odds were three to one that Dan proved the conqueror.
THE FIGHT.
Round 1.—Mendoza, with his piercing black eye,
looked at his opponent with scornful contempt,
and a more than usual degree of confidence.
Lee soon showed he was no novice in the art.
He stood well up, with his left arm extended,
and tried rather artfully to pop in a hit over
Mendoza’s guard; but the latter stopped several
of these, and eventually sent Harry down. The
odds rose ten to one on Dan, and the bets were
decided respecting the first knock-down and
first blood.
2.—Lee rose exasperated, the claret flowing
copiously. Mendoza made a hit, which was neatly
returned by Lee upon Dan’s nose—they closed and
fell.
3.—Lee, out of temper, went in to mill away; but
Mendoza punished him right and left for his
temerity, and he saluted his mother earth.
4.—Lee now convinced the spectators that he
was something more than a sparrer, by showing
game—he put in a good hit over the left eye of
Mendoza; but Dan threw him in the close. The
opinions of the cognoscenti began to waver,
for it appeared not quite so easy a thing as
imagined; and two to one was sported that
Mendoza did not beat Lee in half an hour.
5.—Lee, not destitute of pluck, attempted to
rally; but Mendoza, aware of his intentions, put
in so severe a blow, that Harry went under the
ropes. Three to one against Lee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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