Harry Sellers, a west country boxer of deserved provincial reputation, was chosen by some friends as a likely young fellow to reduce the braggadocia of Corcoran, whose challenges were of the true Hibernian cut of some hedge-schoolmaster transplanted to the Seven Dials. The match was made for 100 guineas “and a bet of £500 or £600 on the event,”—we do not profess to know what the last phrase means—and the combatants met at the Crown Inn, Staines, October 10, 1776. The attendance appears to have been remarkably good. Corcoran, with the “gift of the gab,” was the landlord of the Blakeney’s Head, St. Giles’s, and was a sort of “Stunning Joe Banks” of his day: what he was good for as a pugilist we cannot say. “At the first onset,” says the report, “Corcoran gave his antagonist a violent blow, which threw him to the farthest end of the stage, and the odds increased from three to four to one in Peter’s favour. Sellers now fought very shy for about eighteen minutes, in order to wind his antagonist, which having accomplished, he advanced boldly and beat him by straight-forward hitting in ten minutes.” Did any one ever read a more “plain unvarnished tale” of how a natural fighter and good boxer beat a bounceable publican? What need of the farrago we find at pages 86, 87, 88, vol. i. of “Boxiana,” to explain that which needs no explanation? Corcoran was thrashed, and, we believe, couldn’t help it. Pierce tells us a story of his house in St. Giles’s flowing with “all sorts of spirits, plenty of new pots, etc., inside and outside painted, and got up in superior style to what it was ever witnessed before,” etc. Moreover—and here is the detail that clinches it—“Peter was playing skittles next morning with all the activity and cheerfulness of a man who had never been engaged in pugilism.” As Pierce about this period was a Dublin “gossoon,” he must have had an exact knowledge of the decorations, interior and exterior, of Peter’s hostelrie, and a reliable tradition of his morning’s amusements. For ourselves, a much more careful search than that of the inventor of “Boxiana” (who made none, by the way), fails to tell us more than we have hereinbefore set down. On the 4th of June, 1777, at Ascot Heath races, Joe Hood,[32] a hardy and successful boxer, fought Harry Sellers for 50 guineas aside. Joe fought with great courage and skill, but the science and activity of Sellers secured the victory. Hood fought Sellers again, four weeks afterwards (June 2), and was again beaten. In June, 1778, Harry Sellers met the once formidable champion, Bill Stevens, the Nailer. It was a one-sided affair. Stevens, still courageous, could not stand against the rapidity, skill, and freshness of Harry, and was defeated. The stake was but £25, which shows how the mighty Stevens had fallen.