With those whose charity begins—and ends—at the farthest possible point from home, with those who, to be more particular, born of British blood, cannot speak of the British Lion without referring to mange, who never refer to British traditions or institutions without a sneer, the present writer has little patience. It is necessary to say that at some point in this chronicle in order to avoid misunderstanding. Tutored by Pierce Egan, Borrow, and other and later writers, we are apt to lose all sense of perspective in regarding that one-time wholly British institution, the Prize-Ring. Further, other sources of enlightenment, and especially our schoolmasters, have blinded us to any flaw in the tradition of British Fair Play, the love of which, as already said, is an acquired and not an inherent virtue. And if in this and other chapters some account is given of events where the love of fair play was conspicuously lacking, and which perhaps tend to show that a great tradition can be, after all, but a great superstition, that will not, I trust, be taken as evidence of the writer’s anti-English proclivities. At this time of day, the truth, so far as one can discover it, can do no harm—if indeed it ever can. And with that much by way of explanation and warning, we proceed to some account of the two immortal battles between Cribb and Molineux, the black.
The history of the Nigger in Boxing has yet to be fully explored. From the time of Bill Richmond and Molineux (the first black boxers whose names have come down to us) till the time of Jack Johnson, negroes in this country have fought, with certain exceptions, under the severe handicap of unpopularity. Without entering too deeply into the Colour question, we may 45 say that this unpopularity comes also from tradition. The vast majority of negro boxers had been slaves or the descendants of slaves. In early days and in the popular imagination they were savages, or almost savages. Also it was recognised from the first that the African negro and his descendants in the West Indies and America were harder-headed than white men, less sensitive about the face and jaw; most black boxers can take without pain or trouble a smashing which would cause the collapse of a white man. Occasionally this is balanced by the nigger’s weakness in the stomach—but, one thing with another, the white man is at a disadvantage. But physical inequality is not the only point of difference. Niggers are usually children in temperament, with the children’s bad points as well as their good ones. The black man’s head is easily turned, and when his personal and physical success over a white man is manifest he generally behaves like the worst kind of spoiled child. In extreme cases his overwhelming sense of triumph knows no bounds at all, and he turns from a primitive man into a fiend. His insolence is appalling. When the black is in this condition ignorant white men lose their heads, their betters are coldly disgusted. There have been exceptions, the most notable of whom was Peter Jackson, whose exploits will be found in the second part of this book. Peter Jackson was a thoroughly good fellow. As a rule, however, it is far better that negroes, if fight they must, should fight amongst themselves. No crowd is ever big-hearted enough, or “sporting” enough, to regard an encounter between white and black with a purely sporting interest.
Thomas Molineux was born of slave parents in the State of Virginia. He himself had been legally freed, and he came over to England, without friends, with the idea of earning a living with his fists. “Thormanby” (the pen name of the late W. Wilmott Dixon) tells us that he had been in the service, in America, of Mr. Pinckney, subsequently United States Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s; and he was a good friend to the lonely black on his arrival in London. Molineux put himself in the hands of Bill Richmond, a fellow negro who had been taken 46 into the service of the Duke of Northumberland when that nobleman was campaigning in America, and, later, educated at his expense and by him set up as a carpenter. Richmond appears to have been a very well-behaved fellow, and at the time of Molineux’s arrival was keeping an inn in the West End of London.
By all that is fair, even in love and war, Molineux should have won the first of the two battles he fought with Tom Cribb. He was aiming high, for his conquests, previous to his challenging the champion, were few and insignificant. However, Tom could do no less than accept, though he underrated the black: and a match was made for ￡200 a side. The place chosen was Copthall Common, near East Grinstead, in Sussex, and the day December 10th, 1810. Vast numbers of people came down from London to see the fight, travelling through a downpour of rain which made the ring into a mere pool of mud. Cribb was seconded by John Gulley and Joe Ward, and Molineux by Bill Richmond and Paddington Jones. “Time” was kept by Sir Thomas Apreece.
Bets were made that Molineux would not last for half an hour—and, as the event proved, lost.
The men were splendidly matched. Cribb stood 5 feet 10? inches and weighed 14 stone 2 lb.: Molineux was two inches shorter and almost exactly the same weight. Neither man was in absolutely first-rate condition. Cribb was always inclined to be “beefy” and the Moor (as Egan calls him) was a somewhat dissipated customer. Indeed the majority of fighters in those days were plucky enough in battle, but lacked the higher and more enduring courage to go through a long period of arduous training.
Owing to Gentleman Jackson’s perspicacity, the ring had been formed at the bottom of a hill, so that the great crowd of spectators could get an excellent view of the proceedings.
Nothing of any importance occurred in the first four rounds. Molineux was thrown in the first and drew first blood from the champion in the second. The wet ground made foothold precarious, and on that account a comparatively light blow knocked 47 a man down. Even so it was Cribb who did the most knocking. The fifth round was very fierce. Each in turn had some little advantage. The round was a long series of rallies, quick leads neatly stopped, hot counters, one of which landed on Cribb’s left eye. There was no betting at the end of this round. In the eighth the champion had a good deal the worst of it, but stood and took his gruel like the man he always was. Egan’s description of the ninth round may be quoted in full as being typical of that author, with his numerous exaggerations and underlinings.
“The battle had now arrived at that doubtful state, and things seemed not to prove so easy and tractable as was anticipated, that the betters were rather puzzled to know how they should proceed with success. Molineux gave such proofs of gluttony, that four to one now made many tremble who had sported it; but still there was a ray of hope remaining from the senseless state in which the Moor appeared at the conclusion of the last round. Both the combatants appeared dreadfully punished; and Cribb’s head was terribly swelled on the left side; Molineux’s nob was also much the worse for the fight. On Cribb’s displaying weakness, the flash side were full of palpitation—it was not looked for, and operated more severe upon their minds upon that account. Molineux rallied with a spirit unexpected, bored in upon Cribb, and by a strong blow through the Champion’s guard, which he planted in his face, brought him down. It would be futile here to attempt to pourtray the countenances of the interested part of the spectators, who appeared, as it were, panic-struck, and those who were not thoroughly acquainted with the game of the Champion began hastily to hedge-off; while others, better informed, still placed their confidence on Cribb, from what they had seen him hitherto take.”
By the thirteenth round the betting had changed to 6-4 on the Moor. But the fight remained extraordinarily level until the end of the eighteenth round, when both appeared to be exhausted. 48 They were both heavily punished, and on the whole fight perhaps Cribb had been the more severely handled. Both were unrecognisable, and their colour only distinguished them.
In the nineteenth round, during which the half-hour from the beginning was up, Cribb, who for some time past had been “milling on the retreat,” tried to land a desperate blow at the moment when Molineux had him up against the ropes. These were in three rows, the top one being five feet from the ground. The black dodged the blow, and, seizing the top rope on either side of Cribb with his two hands, pressed upon the champion with all his might. Cribb could neither hit, nor fall. The seconds on either side argued the propriety of separating the men: but the umpires decided that no such interference was allowable. One of the combatants must fall before a second touched either. At that moment about two hundred of the onlookers, infuriated at the black man’s behaviour, rushed the outer ropes and pressed upon the ring-side. Several men snatched at Molineux’s fingers, which still clung to the top rope, and tried to dislodge them. Some say that one or more of the black’s fingers were broken, others that they were at least injured. But all the time Molineux was resting and getting his wind, his head down on Cribb’s chest, his weight thrown forward upon his body. At last, what with his own efforts and the people plucking at his opponent’s hands, Cribb got free and retreated towards the nearest corner. A less courageous man would have contrived to slip down. As it was, Molineux caught him, and, avoiding a hard left with which Cribb lunged at his body, seized the champion’s head under his arm and proceeded to punish him with short, jolting blows, from which presently Cribb fell exhausted to the ground. He brought Cribb down again the next round as well. The twenty-second round, Egan tells us, was “of no importance,” and he leaves it at that, whilst we sadly reflect how many rounds of nowadays, tediously described in detail, deserve the same fate.
It was at the end of the next round that Molineux should have won, though Pierce Egan entirely omits the incident from his 49 full account, merely observing, in another volume of Boxiana (where he makes a note upon the negro’s death in Ireland):—
The Boxing Match between Richard Humphreys and Daniel Mendoza on the 9th of January, 1788.
“It was decided on an oak stage of twenty-four feet square. On the combatant mounting the stage, the odds were two to one on Humphreys. In the first round Mendoza obtained the advantage, and kept it for near twenty minutes. Humphreys then got the lead, and retained it about eight minutes; when, after a well contested fight, it terminated in his favour. The print represents Johnson as second to Humphreys, and Ryan to Mendoza. Of the figures surrounding the stage sixteen are portraits of amateurs.”
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