On the 24th May, 1836, Bendigo beat Brassey at Sheffield, and three days afterwards, on Friday, the 27th, Jem Ward, Brother Nick, Jem Burn, Bendy, and an aristocratic assemblage of “swells,” were at Tottenham, where, at a private farm, there was some “cocking.” The facetious Sambo Sutton, too, was among the company; and as a sequel to the sports of the pit, at a merry meeting at mine host Harry Milbourne’s, there was some lively chaff about the late “black job;” the said chaff being specially promoted by Jem Burn, who was retorted upon (he being the patron of “Young Molyneaux,” and now of the eccentric “Sambo”) as a dealer in sable specimens of humanity. Some reflections on Nick’s pluck being of a very “pale complexion,” led to an offer to match him against Burn’s latest “new black,” and on Massa Sambo enthusiastically declaring how delighted he would be “jest to hab a roun’ or two,” Nick “screwed his courage to the sticking-place,” and a “purse” being at once subscribed, “a field near Finchley” was offered by a sporting gentleman present, and off the whole party started. At this time Sambo was only known, beyond some sparring capabilities, to be a merry mountebank of the original Ethiopian order, and is described in a contemporary paper as having “a head like a cow-cabbage, a mouth laughing all across his face, and possesing an extraordinary faculty of standing upon his flat head, with his flatter feet flourishing in the air, dancing and singing for an hour together, and varying the fun by drinking miscellaneous liquors in that uncomfortable position.” To these accomplishments, says the writer, “he adds great bodily strength, long arms, and such a gluttonous appetite for ‘towelling’ that nobody can give him enough with the gloves.” The affair was really got up as an experiment to try Nick’s mettle, and such was the consequence drawn from his “blood and breeding,” that two and three to one on him were offered, but no takers. The fight did not take place until seven in the evening, when the real P.C. ropes and stakes were got down from town, and pitched in an excellent spot, hidden from the North Road, Finchley, by a rising ground. Jack Adams and Fitzmaurice waited on Ward, Byng Stocks and Jack Clarke on Sambo.