Mr. Gully died at Durham, on Monday, the 9th of March, 1863, in the 80th year of his age, being born at Bristol, August 21, 1783. He was buried at Ackworth Hall, near that city, on Saturday, March 14, leaving a family of five sons and five daughters, moving in the best circles of society. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. DUTCH SAM (SAMUEL ELIAS).—1801‒1814. One of the most remarkable boxers of his time was the Israelitish phenomenon whose name heads this fifth chapter. In height about five feet six inches and a half; in weight nine stone four pounds, never more than nine stone eight pounds, Samuel Elias conquered some of the best eleven and twelve stone men of his time. When stripped Sam looked, in bust and ribs, more like a twelve stone than a nine stone man, showing he had his muscular power and weight in the right place. His shoulders were remarkably square, his arms round, long, muscular and hard; his hands seemed positively of iron, never puffing or knocking up from the punishing hits inflicted on his antagonist; while the quickness of his eagle eye, and the fierceness of his rally were unexampled among his fellow pugilists. A contemporary writer says: “As a hard hitter we except no pugilist whatever; Gully never struck with more force, nor Cribb more heavily than Sam, whose blows were truly dreadful to encounter.” It was the publicly expressed opinion of one of the most experienced and scientific pugilists of the day, that Sam would be a complete match for the mighty Cribb himself, if they could agree to give alternately merely blow for blow. Bill Cropley,[101] who was a burly and game boxer, declared he would rather stand half-an-hour’s milling from Tom Belcher (see TOM BELCHER and CROPLEY, _ante_.), than five minutes of Sam’s punishment. Samuel Elias was born on the 4th of April, 1775, in Petticoat Lane, Whitechapel. As we intend this work, so far as research will make it, to be reliable history, we shall omit the vamped up skirmishes of Pierce Egan, which he says “would fill a volume,” and come to the first authentic record of Sam’s fistic prowess.[102] [Illustration: SAMUEL ELIAS (“DUTCH SAM”), 1801‒1814. ] If, as we conjecture, Sam had fought the battle mentioned below, the claim, urged by Pierce Egan, for Harry Lee of “first introducing Sam to the circle of boxers,” is mere bosh. We read in “Boxiana” (vol. i. 301): “Harry Lee, on his return home from Enfield, on the day that Belcher and Bourke (Joe Berks) were to have fought (October 12, 1801), witnessed Sam fighting with a man by the roadside, very much his superior as to size and weight, and from the excellence which he displayed in that contest, Lee distinguished those peculiar traits in the youthful tyro which have since proved his judgment correct, and matured by time and practice, placed Sam as a first-rate boxer, and stamped him a complete pugilistic hero.”