The combatants mounted the stage at half-past one o’clock, and little time was lost in preliminaries. Bartholomew had determined that sparring should avail Belcher but little, and ding-dong rushes were the game he had resolved on. Belcher, even in the early rounds of the fight, exhibited the tactics, afterwards conspicuous in some of Cribb’s battles, of “milling on the retreat;” but Bartholomew would not be denied, and seconded by his great strength and weight, he got in, planted upon Belcher, and hit him clean down with such violence, as to induce his over-sanguine friends to start off an express, per pigeon, to London, with the intelligence of their man’s victory. They were, however, premature, for Jem, taught by experience, did not give Bartholomew a chance of thus stealing a march on him; after pinking Bartholomew once or twice, he warded off his lunge, and catching him cleverly, threw him so dreadful a cross-buttock, that he was never entirely himself again during the fight. The odds now changed. Yet Bartholomew bravely contended, disputing every round with unyielding firmness, till the close of the seventeenth round, and the expiration of twenty minutes, when Belcher floored him with so terrific a body blow that all was U-P. The contest, considering the shortness of its duration, was considered the most desperate which had been witnessed for many years, and the loser was severely punished. It is erroneously stated in “Boxiana” (p. 129, vol. i.) that Belcher and Bartholomew fought again; but no date or place is mentioned, nor did any such battle ever come off. “Immediately after the fight,” says the report, “Bartholomew was taken into custody on a judge’s warrant, for breaking the peace before the expiration of his bond. He was brought to town in a coach, but bailed out immediately.” Andrew Gamble, the “Irish champion,” was now backed by several influential amateurs to enter the lists with Belcher. Accordingly a match was made for 100 guineas, to be decided on Wimbledon Common, on Monday, December 22, 1800; and on that day vehicles of all descriptions, and crowds of pedestrians, flocked to witness this combat. The journals of the day give on many occasions a sort of _Morning Post_ list of “fashionables” on these occasions. On the present we find enumerated Lord Say and Sele, Colonels Montgomery and Ogle, Captain Desmond, Squire Mountain, Messrs. Cullington, Lee, Kelly, Aldridge, etc.; and among the professionals, John Jackson, Paddington Jones, Bill Gibbons, Caleb Baldwin, etc. Belcher entered the ring about twelve o’clock, accompanied by his second, Joe Ward, with Bill Gibbons as his bottle-holder, and Tom Tring as an assistant. Mendoza was second to Gamble; his bottle-holder, Coady; and old Elisha Crabbe as deputy. Messrs. Mountain, Lee, and Cullington were chosen umpires; the latter also was stakeholder.