October 29, 2003

Weapon of Choice

Posted by Henry

From James Buchan’s Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money (as nice an example of limpid prose as you could ask for, by the way) comes the following.

Sir William Petty, when challenged to a duel in Ireland by Sir Aleyn Brodrick, readily accepted, though he was so short-sighted as to be purblind. He merely asked for choice of weapons and selected, according to Evelyn and Aubrey, ‘an hatchet or Axe in a darke cellar.’

Posted on October 29, 2003 06:05 AM UTC
Comments

I thought that in general, duelling tradition grants the recipient of a challenge the privilege of selecting location and weapons….

Posted by Seth Gordon · October 29, 2003 02:36 PM

I heard once that Ben Franklin responded to a duel challenge by selecting “buckets of shit at dawn.” I hope this is true.

Posted by fontana labs · October 29, 2003 04:05 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.