I do not concern myself whether you are skilled in fencing, nor whether you think yourself capable of contending with a man who is famous all over Europe for his superior dexterity in that art, having fought five or six times in his life, and always killed, wounded, or disarmed his man. I know that in such a case as yours, people consult not their skill, but their courage; and that the fashionable method to be revenged of a man who has insulted you, is to let him run you through the body. But let us pace over this _wise_ maxim; you will tell me that your honour and mine are dearer to you than life. This, therefore, is the principle on which we must reason. To begin with what immediately concerns yourself. Can you ever make it appear in what respect you were personally offended by a conversation that related solely to me? We shall see presently whether you ought on such an occasion to take my cause upon yourself: in the mean time, you cannot but allow that the quarrel was quite foreign to your own honour in particular, unless you are to take the suspicion of being beloved by me as an affront. I must own you have been insulted; but then it was after having begun the quarrel yourself by an atrocious affront; and, as I have had frequent opportunities, from the many military people in our family, of hearing these horrible questions debated, I am not to learn that one outrage committed in return to another does not annul the first, and that he who receives the first insult is the only person offended. It is the same in this case, as in a rencounter, where the aggressor is only in fault: he who wounds and kills another in his own defence, is not considered as being guilty of murder. To come now to myself; we will agree that I was insulted by the conversation of my Lord B----, although he said no more of me than he might justify. Do you know what you are about in defending my cause with so much warmth and indiscretion? You aggravate his insults; you prove he was in the right; you sacrifice my honour to the false punctilios of yours, and defame your mistress to gain at most the reputation of a good swords-man. Pray tell me what affinity there is between your manner of justifying me and my real justification? Do you think that to engage in my behalf with so much heat is any great proof that there are no connections between us? And that it is sufficient to shew your courage to convince the world you are not my lover? Be assured, my Lord B----’s insinuations are less injurious to me than your conduct. It is you alone who take upon yourself, by this bustle to publish and confirm them. He may, perhaps, turn aside the point of your sword in conflict; but never will my reputation, nor perhaps my being, survive the mortal blow you meditate.