“SIR,—I was somewhat astonished on my return to town on Saturday, to learn that a challenge was inserted in your paper on Thursday last, as if from Mr. Mendoza. Should I be right in my conclusion, by believing that it came from that celebrated pugilist, I beg you will inform the public through the medium of your paper, that for some years I have entirely withdrawn from a public life, and am more and more convinced of the propriety of my conduct by the happiness which I enjoy in private among many friends of great respectability, with whom it is my pride to be received on terms of familiarity and friendship: goaded, however, as I am to a petty conflict, I hope that it will not be considered too much arrogance on my part simply to observe, that, after waiting for more than three years to accept the challenge of any pugilist, however dexterous in the science, and however highly flattered by his friends, I think it rather extraordinary that Mr. Mendoza should add a silence of four years to those three, it being nearly seven years since I had the satisfaction of chastising him; but Mr. Mendoza derived one great good from the issue of that contest—he was taught to be less hasty in forming his resolutions, more slow in carrying them into effect. “This cautious and wise principle of action deserves much commendation; and having served an apprenticeship of seven years to learn a certain portion of artificial courage, he now comes forward with a stock of impudence (the only capital which during that time he seems to have acquired) to force me to appear once more in that situation which I have for years cheerfully avoided. “Reluctant, however, as I am to attract again, even for a moment, the public attention, I shall have no objection to vindicate my character by a meeting with Mr. Mendoza when and where he pleases, provided he’ll promise to fight, and provided he’ll also promise not to give previous information to the magistrates at Bow Street, or elsewhere. “I am, Sir, yours and the public’s most respectfully, “JOHN JACKSON.” _Nov. 20, 1801._ Need we say that this was on the part of Mendoza a mere piece of that absurd system of gagging then so much in vogue, and on which we have elsewhere commented. Independent of his pugilistic prowess, Mr. Jackson was distinguished for his extraordinary powers as a runner of a short distance, and as a leaper no man of his day was equal to him at a standing jump, of which many extraordinary feats are on record. His muscular strength was equal to his bodily activity, and in the presence of Mr. Harvey Coombe, and other gentlemen, he lifted ten hundred weight and one quarter, and wrote his own name with eighty-four pounds weight suspended from his little finger!