Black Ajax

by George MacDonald Fraser

  * “Walk-er!” A term of disbelief and derision, from John (“Hookey”) Walker, an early time-and-motion expert whose reports were so frequently challenged by workmen that “Walker!” came to signify a tale not to be trusted. (See Dickens' A Christmas Carol.)

  † This tavern and its proprietor achieved immortality from their mention in the most famous example of boxing literature, Hazlitt's essay, “The Fight”. It was at the Hole-in-the-Wall that the writer “got the office” about the contest between Bill Neate, “the Bristol Bull”, and Tom Hickman, “the Gasman”, on December 10, 1821.

  * James Salter, servant to Sir Hans Sloane, set up as a barber and coffee-house proprietor in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in 1695. Part of his shop was a museum of curiosities presented by Sloane and others, and although this collection was sold off at the end of the eighteenth century, the premises continued to be used as a tavern, and retained the old name of “Don Saltero's” bestowed on Salter by one of his patrons, possibly Richard Steele. The building was pulled down in 1866; it was on the site of 18, Cheyne Walk.

  WILLIAM HAZLITT,

  essayist, critic,

  and journalist

  “I would not miss it for the salvation of mankind,” said Lord Fopping-ton when he heard that Lady Teaser's case was to come before the Lords, and so said I to myself as I left the Holborn Castle on the fine evening of Monday the 13th of July and set my course for Leicester Square. For mine host, the incomparable Gregson, having served me a dish of the mutton-chops for which his hospitable board is justly famed, and whispered me “the office” that the scene of next day's action would be Tothill Fields, where the dark powers of Africa would contend with the sturdy force of our own Gloucestershire, I exclaimed: “I'll be hanged if I don't go directly to view this American prodigy of Richmond's, and whet my appetite for the battle.” My education was so far wanting that, though well versed in the lore and language of the Fancy, and ever eager for the conversation of those students and professors of the green fairy circle, I had never seen a fight, but now, having heard in Bob's house that the celebrated Elias (known as “Dutch” Sam from his preference for the “juniper”, so Toms tells me) had been down to the Horse and Dolphin to test the newly come Black Ajax, and had pronounced him “a rum 'un to fib” (which translates as a formidable fellow), I was resolved to see this portent in the dusky flesh, come what might.

  It will be a battle royal, thinks I, and hugged myself in anticipation, for if this Molineaux can win “golden opinions” of such a fearsome gladiator as Dutch Sam, of whom Cropley said that he had rather stand half an hour's milling from Tom Belcher than five minutes of the Jew's punishment, then, I told myself, he should be worth an early rise and a hasty breakfast to see. He is reputed a hammering fighter, and his Bristol opponent the gamest of the game, so it will be Hannibal against Scipio

  “and damn'd be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’ ”

  Oh, ye philosophers and critics, who hold with Suetonius that the pen is mightier than the blade, spare a thought for those whose weapon is the humble fist. Disdain not the honest pugilist who fights with Nature's arms as beneath your notice, but consider that when he fibs his adversary's nob or causes his claret to flow upon the turf, “making the green one red”, he strikes with the spirit and bravery of his fore-fathers at Crecy and Agincourt, and inflicts no hurts one-tenth as deep as you with your acid judgments and corroding pens.

  But enough of reflection. I was going down Long Acre, wishing I had some companion to share my enthusiasm and the fantasies of sporting discussion, when I saw ahead of me a tall robust man with a swinging stride, heading west. I know that one, thinks I, and coming up with him saw that it was indeed Mr Gully. I blessed my luck to have encountered of all men the one acknowledged the best judge of the Noble Art, and pressed him to come with me. I was determined, I said, to form my opinion of the African beforehand, and hear what the amateurs had to say, to see how our judgments were borne out in the ring. He laughed, and said the opinions of the amateurs were not worth stale snuff. “They think because the black is two inches shorter and so many pounds lighter, it may tip the scale, but that's nothing to the fighting men,” says he. “The Fancy have no imagination. They judge of what has been, and can't conceive of what is to be. The Bristol Man has won a mill or two in the West Country, while the black, I'm told, has not yet been out, so the leg-men cry up the odds against him, and the amateurs take fright. It is all gammon; wait till they come to the mark.”

  I took this to heart, for Mr Gully is the most cool and sensible of men, with an unbiassed discretion, and no slave to his passions in these matters. I asked was he not curious to see Molineaux beforehand, and he smiled and shook his head, saying he would wait till he was within the ropes. I told him Dutch Sam's opinion, and he said Sam was a comedian. – “But for all that, you can take his word for a fighter's bottom against all the prejudices and pedantic notions of the Fancy.” Richmond would not risk Captain Flashman's money if it were not a sure thing, he added. “What! Is Mad Buck behind the Moor?” said I. “That must put a damper on the Bristol faction, surely.” He seemed to doubt this, saying their loyalty would last while the odds were on their man, whoever his opponent's patron might be. We shook hands, agreeing “to meet at Philippi”, and I went alone to the Horse and Dolphin, primed with the best opinion in the world, and ready to share it with each and every. It's the devil for any one to tell me a secret, or share his thoughts with me, for if they are worth repeating, they are sure to come out. The public ear is too great a temptation to me.

  There was a great press in Richmond's parlour, and a prodigious noise, some singing, some discussing the house's beef pies and porter, and all talking of the fight. A large fellow with a bottle nose was holding forth that Molineaux, being new to the country, must be at a disadvantage from the London air and his change of diet from America, where black men were given nothing but roots. Dismal talk in Richmond's house, and not to the liking of his listeners, so I told them air and diet had nothing to do with it. “You have no imagination,” says I to Bottle Nose. “You judge of what has been, and have no conception of what is to be.” “There's profundity, d—d if it isn't!” cries another. “You're a student of Kant, sir, don't deny it. What'll you have, brandy or champagne or anything at all?” A little man in a corduroy weskit waxed facetious over Kant and cant, which delighted the many at Bottle Nose's expense, who swore he would not stand it, and offered to stove in the ribs of any man in the place. This is not what I came for, thinks I; jollity and mirth by all means, but I'll see the black or forfeit my head. Accordingly I made my way through the press, “sweaty nightcaps” and all, and by the exercise of some agility won through to the yard behind, where the object of my quest came in view, displaying his manly form at the weights, to the admiration of the Corinthians.

  Ladies, you have never seen an African warrior! The poor personations of fancy, the sooty figures of Astley's or Drury Lane, are but caricatures, vain pantomime imitations when compared with the reality. The black boys who proffer your morning chocolate, or keep your train from the muddy cobbles, are pygmies to the Anteas who now dwells at the Horse and Dolphin. This is the Noble Savage tamed, yet not so tame that he will not strike terror in the boldest who must meet him in the ring. Molineaux indeed is no giant in height, but his shoulders are those of Atlas, his limbs are glossy ebony perfection of grace and power, his carriage a model of primitive nobility. True, his features are homely. As Toms might say, they would stop the clock, but their mobility is remarkable, changing from a smile “to dazzle the eye” to a terrible aspect that would become Prester John in majesty enthroned.

  So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell Grew darker at their frown.

  “Confound me if I ever saw an uglier dial.” Thus Bottle Nose at my elbow, who it seemed had either followed me in disgust at finding no challengers in the tap, or perhaps because they were too many. “Well,” says he, “when the Bristol Man has improved his looks for him, he may still drive a p
rofit scaring crows.” There's a nice conceit, thinks I, and would have advised him not to dismiss the black's chances for being two inches shorter and a few pounds lighter, when all conversation was brought to a stop by Egan's asking the black hero how he would treat Burrows the Bristol Man in the morning. Sooty Tom gave a great grin and said he would knock the wind out of him so hard he would be glad to get back in his burrow again. This amused the groundlings, whose laughter inspired Molineaux to caper and rain blows upon the fibbing-bag, saying he would rattle his ribs so – and so! – and so!

  “It ain't manly, it's not fighter-like,” says my Bardolph of the Bottle Nose. “If he is so sure (which he can't be) the less said about it the better.” I believe Richmond thought so, too, for he is one “that bears his sable honours meekly”. He took Black Tom by the arm, saying he must go to bed, and they bade the company good-night to great cheering. “Well, confidence is half the battle,” said the wit in the corduroy weskit. “Aye, but only half,” said Bottle Nose, “and he may get a rare drubbing in the other part of it. The black's a bag of wind.” “He may blow your chap back to Bristol,” says the weskit. “Let him vapour and swagger all he likes,” contends Bottle, “your best men are always the most modest, and I'll lick anyone who thinks otherwise!” The other, who knew well how to enrage and placate by turns, kept his antagonist adroitly in play, until the discussion became general, whereupon all returned to the parlour to pass the night in “loud and furious fun”.

  Having satisfied my curiosity by seeing the Moor, and wishing to compare my impressions with those around me, I joined readily in their debate, first as interlocutor and presently, with the warmth of Richmond's hospitable fire and the soothing potency of his rum shrub, as attentive auditor. There is no contentment so complete as that which comes from convivial company, a topic of mutual interest, comfortable surrounds, and a sufficiency of pleasant but not too inebriating refreshment, the whole compound being given a teinture piquante by the reflection that we would be better in bed. My lodgings seemed unconscionably distant, the streets between might be alive with pads and buz-gloaks, Oliver I was certain must be out of town, and had not my dearest Sarah cautioned me against the night air which she was sure must give me a chill? Thinks I, I'll be hanged if I stir a foot, when I can pass the night here among these good companions, and if their conversation and mine host's fire become too heated, there's the back parlour where I can lie snug and peaceful as if I were at Winterslow, and be on hand to join the Moor's caravan for Tothill Fields in the morning. Why, there shall be no need of early rising, and I'll break my fast at leisure upon Richmond's best!

  And so to bed (on the back parlour couch) I went presently, and dreamed of grinning blackamoors who grimaced and glared their adversaries to submission, and woke with sunshine on my face. I peeped out to find the main parlour empty but for a maid who scrubbed the floor. “What, no one up yet?” “Why, sir, master's up and gone these four hours past, with Black Tom to the fight, and the gentlemen with them.” “What, gone! and I, like Enobarbus, have made the night light with drinking, and slept day out of countenance? It will all be over and done by now!” She was sure it would be, and that Tom must have won, having all the prayers of the fair sex of the Horse and Dolphin riding pillion on his dusky shoulders, and her own three-farthings which Mister Jones had promised to wager on him at judicious odds.

  I cursed my folly and ill-luck together. This is what comes of late hours and eye-water, and listening to the babbling of fools without imagination, says I. Seeing the little slavey's alarm at my outburst, I said, well, one hope disappointed is enough for the day. “Let me see, if Tom has milled over his man, and the odds were, say, six to one against him, your three-farthings will have brought you fourpence-ha'penny – I'm sure that's right – which with your stake will be fivepence-farthing. But if he has taken a melting, why, my dear, you're off Point Nonplus. Here's a shilling to cover your loss, if loss it be, and if you would win favour in the eyes of Heaven, the next time a gentleman sleeps in of a fight morning, then do thou strike and spare not, and he will bless thee, child, as one waking to Gabriel's trump.”

  She ran away with her face in her apron, but taking the “bob” with her. I went in search of traffic for Peck Alley, as Toms would say, my mind running on “Lilliput chickens boil'd, and hams that flit in airy slice” as consolation. But I'll see a fight one of these days, I vowed, “or aile lig i' the grund for it”, which at least will spare me the vexation of waking to dashed hopes in Richmond's back parlour.

  CAPTAIN BUCKLEY FLASHMAN,

  resumed

  Tom's first fight, against Burrows the Bristol Man – lord love you, 'twas no fight at all. A formality, sir, a spectacle, arranged by that most prudent of managers, Bill Richmond. What's that – was it a cross? Burn your impudence, no such thing! D'ye think I'd touch a queer mill? That'll cost you another bottle o' red tape for effrontery. A cross, indeed!

  No, my green companion, I mean that once Richmond knew he had a promising chicken in Molineaux (at my prompting, you recall), he made sure the lad was seen to advantage in his first bout. Which meant choosing the right opponent for him to beat: some hulking lout who didn't know cream from cider but had won a few mills out o' Town, and would be strong and stupid enough to endure a sound thrashing and show a fine gory figurehead afterwards – science ain't in it with blood when it comes to raising cheers from the mob, you see. The Bristol Man answered to perfection; he was the victim, Tom the executioner. But there was naught smoky about it. 'Twas cut-and-dried inevitable, that's all.

  Confound it, don't ye know that's how a fighter's name is built, by choosing good matches that he's sure to win, and catch the Fancy's fancy, eh? If he starts underdog, so much the better for him – and for profit. Richmond was fly to that, bragging Tom's prowess while admitting the Bristol Man's advantages of weight and height, and seeing to it that word got about from Dutch Sam how in breathing Tom he'd been warned to steer clear of his upper works – aha, said the wiseacres, that must be the nigger's weak spot. Consequence? Seven to four on the Bristol Man the night before the fight, with Bill sighing and wagging his foxy grey head as he took the bets. As Molineaux's patron I was bound to back him handsomely, so I spread a few hundred judiciously among the legs, and looked forward to further investment at the ringside. Oh, they don't call it the Noble Art for nothing!

  In truth, though, money was the least of it for me. If anything was needful to confirm me in the front rank of the sporting ton, 'twas to be sponsor to a top-notch pug, and I'd seen enough on my visits to the Nag to be sure that my first judgment of Tom had been sound. Pad Jones had brought him on famously, and while I doubted he'd ever be in Cribb's parish, I knew he'd do me credit.

  I took my own way to the ground that Tuesday morning, though, for while some Corinthians were used to drive their fighters to the field, and make a great proprietary show, it always looked dam' vulgar to me, and we Flashmans are devils for good taste. I was sure Richmond's caravan would go by Whitehall and Parliament Street to catch the public eye and join with the common herd coming over the Horse Ferry, so I tooled my curricle sedately through the Park to James Street, and who should be on the corner of Castle Lane, hunting for a jarvey and getting nowhere, but Pierce Egan. Better than the town crier, thinks I, for while he wrote the sorriest stuff, he had the public ear and would puff Tom far and wide.*

  I took him up, and he made a desk of his hat on his knee and scribbled as we bowled along past the Artillery Ground.

  “Hark to this, Buck,” says he familiarly. “‘Unknown, unnoticed, unprotected and uninformed, the brave Molineaux arrived in England’. How's that for a lead paragraph, eh?”

  “Masterly,” says I. “Leigh Hunt must look to his laurels.”

  “But who is Molineaux, that's the point? Richmond is close as an oyster, and Blackee himself don't gab to be understood. Pad Jones says he was a slave in America – is it so?”

  I told him it was, and how Tom had won his freedom.

 
; “Oh, that's rare! ‘Broke the shackles with his iron fist …”’ says he, pencil flying. “Here, though, we must play up the African warrior. His father wasn't a chief, I suppose? No? Well, I have it! … ‘Descended from a warlike hero, who had been the conquering pugilist of America …’ H'm … what the dooce brought him to England, d'ye know?”

  “Wants to be champion, I believe.”

  “Ye don't say! I must have Cribb's opinion on that …” Scribble, scribble. “‘Britain attracted his towering disposition … left his native soil in quest for glory … raging seas were no impediment to his heroic views …’ There's a happy phrase, I think … ‘Now offers himself, a rude, unsophisticated savage –’ No, come, that won't do. ‘Stranger’, I think, not ‘savage’ … mustn't alarm our fair readers. Aye, ‘Now offers himself to the patrons of that manly sport which instils valour in England's hardy sons and gives stability to the national character …’ Capital stuff !” says Pierce. “Now, then, no secret you're his patron. Why, Buck?”

  “Born a slave,” says I. “My family's always been dead against it. Grandfather spent his life … ah, helping niggers to better themselves. Well, there you are.” I gave a modest shrug. “Don't need to play that up, though.”

  “ ‘Patron of freedom!’ ” cries the Grub Street oaf, scribbling like a thing demented. He was babbling about “a dusky hand stretched out to tear the fistic laurels from Britannia's brow” when we rolled into Tothill Fields, which was a sizeable meadow in those days, 'tween Chelsea and the river. This being a minor mill, there was no outer ring or stage, but several hundred were gathered about the ropes, and groups of people were hurrying down from the Horse Ferry Road. There were a number of carriages already there, and among their occupants were Saye and Sele, Alvanley, Sefton (come to see his sooty namesake uphold the family honour, no doubt), Cripplegate Barrymore, and various Four-in-Handers. I raised my whip to their hails, and wheeled in by the ring, the commonalty cheering and making room.