A Conspiracy of Paper

Decker he intended to marry was as delicate as Sir Owen claimed.

I went over with her what she had told me and then handed her a purse with five pounds in it, enough for her to eat, drink, and clothe herself in relative comfort until her trial.

Once I left her cell I would have to make arrangements for her lodgings. In order for her to cooperate with me, Kate would have to be made comfortable, and that meant moving her to the Press Yard—no inexpensive place, I can assure you, as it was the most desirable section of the prison. There the inmates could enjoy relatively spacious and clean rooms, walk about unmolested in the open air of the courtyard, and be waited on by turnkeys who had more in common with tavern publicans than jailers. Anything could be procured for silver in the Press Yard. While the drink was weak and sometimes stale, it was better than the foul water of the Common Side. And if the food was overpriced and bland, it proved far superior to the slop the poorer prisoners endured, often so crawling with maggots as to be nearly inedible.

The price of these accommodations would injure me severely: twenty pounds to gain Kate entrance to the Press Yard, and another eleven shillings a week for her rent. After the money I would have to pay this villain Arnold, and the several bribes that had already lightened my purse, I saw no possibility that Sir Owen’s remarkable fee of fifty pounds should so much as cover my expenses. A matter I had believed should be simple and lucrative was now to cost me an amount that would reckon in the shillings if not the pounds. Parting with so large a sum to house Kate made me miserable, but I could not see that I had a choice. I would pay as required for her silence.

“I shall come back to make sure you are well,” I told her, though it was a lie, just as my assurance that she would not hang was a lie. I expected the evidence would acquit her, though I knew not to what lengths Jonathan Wild would go to procure witnesses for a prosecution. Nevertheless, I could not make myself Kate Cole’s protector, so I left Newgate prison hoping, in the weeks ahead, to think of her as little as possible.

SIX

RATHER THAN RETURN HOME I went immediately to the vicinity of Bloomsbury Square, where my friend Elias Gordon took a lodging he could ill afford on Gilbert Street. I was younger in those days, and required little in the way of assistance, but at times when I could not adequately serve one of my patrons without some aid, I was accustomed to calling on Elias, a Scottish surgeon and a trusted friend. I met Elias after my last fight, when I had so permanently damaged my leg. It had been during my third pitched battle with Guido Gabrianelli, that Italian whom I had beaten twice before and whose beatings had earned me so much notoriety.

Gabrianelli had come from Padua, where he was known as the Human Mallet or some other such rot uttered in his native and effeminate tongue. I had boxed against foreign men before; Mr. Habakkuk Yardley, who arranged my fights, loved a match against foreigners, for Englishmen gladly paid forth their shillings to see one of their countrymen—or even a Jew they could pretend was a true Englishman—fight a Frenchified dandy. There was something rather leveling about the conflicts of fists—Jews became Englishmen and all foreigners became Frenchmen.

This Human Mallet Gabrianelli arrived in England, and without so much as inquiring of me or Mr. Yardley about arranging a pitched battle, he proceeded to publish the most infuriating notice in the Daily Advertiser:

It has come to my attention that there is a Boxer on this island who is credited with the strength of a Samson—one Benjamin Weaver, who calls himself the Lion of Judah. But if he claims he can beat me, I call him the Liar of Judah. In my native Italy no one dares fight me, for I break every opponent’s jaw with my fist. Let us see if this Weaver has the courage to match his strength with mine. Standing ready and at his service, I am

Guido Gabrianelli, the Human Mallet

My fellow-fighters and I were astonished at the belligerence of this foreigner. It was no uncommon thing for boxers to take out provoking notices in this paper, but one usually waited until a conflict had produced a grudge—to begin a relationship with a grudge was a very preposterous thing. But Mr. Yardley saw that there was silver in Gabrianelli’s absurdity, and that these flamboyant boasts should draw us a pretty crowd. So while he made arrangements with this worthy, I replied in kind, taking out my own advertisement, which Mr. Yardley had advised me to make as provoking as I could.

Let Mr. Gabrianelli, this fighter from Italy, be aware that I am ready and eager to box with him at a moment’s notice. I do not doubt the veracity of his claims that in his native land he breaks every opponent’s jaw with his fist, but Mr. Gabrianelli ought to be advised that here he will be fighting men of grit, and I have reason to doubt that he could break a Briton’s jaw with an anvil. Should Mr. Gabrianelli be reckless enough to agree to the challenge he has proposed, I heartily hope all natives of this Island will attend to see what happens to foreigners who come to these shores to make idle boasts to,

Ben. Weaver

This fight became the talk of the votaries of the art of pugilism, and it proved to be better attended than we had dared to hope, bursting to its very capacity Mr. Yardley’s theatre in Southwark. Indeed, the take at the door was in excess of one hundred and fifty pounds, of which Yardley took a third and the fighters each a third.

Gabrianelli arrived looking like a game-enough boxer. I had seen this man once before, and that at a distance, as he paraded about town in his silly red suit, dandified with stuff and ribbons, and from the look of him I thought any Briton at all should be able to fell the Italian with no greater weapon than his breath. Now, stripped as we both were to naught but our breeches, stockings, and pumps, I could see he was a man of some muscle. More than that, he had a frighteningly bestial quality about him, for beneath his freshly shaved head, his back and chest were matted with thick black hair like an ape of Africa. The crowd, too, had been expecting a silly fop who knew not enough to remove his wig for the match, and many stared in mute amazement at this shaggy creature as he lumbered back and forth along his end of the ring, flexing the muscles of his chest and arms.

My concerns, at least for this fight, proved groundless. Once the battle began, Gabrianelli lashed out with a powerful blow to my chin. It came quite suddenly, and it hurt tremendously, I admit, but I made a show of demonstrating to the cheering crowds that my jaw was not broken. I turned my back to my opponent and slapped my own face lightly on either side, which gesture awarded me an uproarious cheer.

Gabrianelli attempted to sneak up behind me, to take advantage of my antics. I knew my behavior was dangerous, but it pleased the crowd, and thus it pleased Mr. Yardley, who was never ungenerous with bonuses for his best fighters, just as he was merciless to his fighters who lost too often. In any event, I ducked just in time to evade a powerful blow of this Human Mallet, and taking advantage of my crouched position, I lashed out with a right fist pointed directly to his gut, cutting upward just as I made contact, in the hopes of lifting him into the air.

I succeeded. It is no idle boast that I sent him reeling backward, as though blown by a great gust of wind, until his feet met the railing of the ring, and he tripped over, falling onto an eager gathering of spectators, who joined in the fun by beating him down until he grew quite intertwined with the thicket of legs. The crowd was now wild, and I raised my hands in victory, even as I taunted Gabrianelli to return to the ring. He lay motionless for only a second, and then he stirred, rising to his feet, his mouth agape with confusion. When he turned to look upon me, I saw that his face, along with much of his bald head, had turned a blinding crimson, and he began waving a fist about him in a challenging manner, shouting something in his own whimsical language.

Mr. Yardley, a notorious fighter in his own day, now grown fat and jolly, called to me from below, “I think he’s challenging you, Ben.”

“Challenging me to what?” I inquired with some difficulty, for my jaw had already grown sore from the blow it had taken. “This is a boxing ring. What more of a challenge could he desire?”

As it happened, he wished to challenge me to a duel of blades. It seemed that in Italy, one never strikes an opponent in the stomach. It is considered unmanly. There, I suppose, they simply strike one another in the face all day—making it no surprise that these jaws of theirs shatter so routinely. Gabrianelli believed that I had committed an outrage and refused to step into the ring again with a man who knew no honor. I was thus declared a winner, and Mr. Yardley narrowly averted a riot, for the crowd began to murmur with rage that they had paid a shilling to see only three punches thrown. By announcing that their admission fee had paid for them to witness proof of the strength of the Briton over the foreigner, Yardley saved his neck and our proceeds.