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I was invited to a cock-match some miles from Glengauny, where were above forty gentlemen, most of them of the names of Owen, Parry, and Griffith; they fought near twenty battles, and every battle a cock was killed. Their cocks are doubtless the finest in the world; and the gentlemen, after they were a little heated with liquor, were as warm as their cocks.
At the cock-match, he betted several wagers with Sir Coventry Carew, and his own brother Mr. Henry Carew, the minister of Saltash, which he had the good fortune to win, and left the cock-pit undiscovered by any one. This puts us in mind of a remarkable adventure of our hero’s life, which he always told with a great deal of pleasure.
"I say, Harry," my lord goes on, "I'll show thee my horses after breakfast; and we'll go a bird-netting to-night, and on Monday there's a cock-match at Winchester do you love cock-fighting, Harry? between the gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Hampshire, at ten pound the battle, and fifty pound the odd battle to show one-and-twenty cocks."
My young Lord Viscount was exceeding sorry when he heard that Harry could not come to the cock-match with him, and must go to London, but no doubt my lord consoled himself when the Hampshire cocks won the match; and he saw every one of the battles, and crowed properly over the conquered Sussex gentlemen.
It extends itself even to the return of the bow and the hat; and at the same time that the heads of parties preserve towards one another an outward show of good-breeding, and keep up a perpetual intercourse of civilities, their tools that are dispersed in these outlying parts will not so much as mingle together at a cock-match.
Till the crops were off the ground there was no sporting, except an occasional cock-match at Winchester, and a bull-baiting at Hexton Fair. Harry and Will rode off to many jolly fairs and races round about the young Virginian was presented to some of the county families the Henleys of the Grange, the Crawleys of Queen's Crawley, the Redmaynes of Lionsden, and so forth.
Excepting only the scarce portrait, my collection goes no further than those which Mrs. Hogarth has advertised, and even of them a few are wanting, which I wish you would procure for me, viz., The Cock-Match, The Five Orders of Periwigs, The Medley, The Times, Wilkes, and The Bruiser.
At Darlington he assumed the character of a rat-catcher, and sold a receipt to a gentleman’s steward for a crown: and under this character he travelled forward to Plymouth. Here, learning that there was to be a great cock-match, he laid aside his rat-catcher’s habit, and put on that of a gentleman, and not the habit only, as too many do, but the manners and behaviour likewise.
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