April 1739: More ridiculous claims made about my victory in cockfight in Randalstown

From the Belfast News Letter of April 17 1739 (April 28 in the modern calendar):
The Belfast News Letter of April 17 1739 (April 28 in the modern calendar)The Belfast News Letter of April 17 1739 (April 28 in the modern calendar)
The Belfast News Letter of April 17 1739 (April 28 in the modern calendar)

To the Printer of the Belfast NEWS LETTER and GENERAL ADVERTISER.

Mr. JOY, Randalstown, April 12, 1739

‘TIS an old Saying and a true, A Man shou’d eat a Peck of Salt with another to know him thoroughly.

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I thought the Friendship that was between you and me might have prevented your publishing any Thing to my Disadvantage; but I find I am mistaken.

Last Year when I advertised the burglarious breaking open of my Game-Pen, and stealing some of my best Cocks; out comes a ridiculous Answer from Coshenden.

And this Year when I entertain’d the Publick with an impartial Account of the Victory I had obtain’d at the Cockfight; out comes another from Duneane; full worse, if possible, than the first, I think I was born to be answer’d.

Nay I doubt not but as soon as this is printed, I shall be plagued, it may be from Utopia, with a third.

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Pretty Encouragement truly for one to write, and I may say farewel English Liberty if I must be snubb’d and contradicted as often as I put Pen to Paper.

The Gentlemen who pretend to answer my last, think themselves might wise; but as cunning as they are I may let them know, before they and I part, I can see as far in a Millstone as they can.

What Right had they to haul me in by Head and Shoulders with one Ptolomy or Newton, South or Atterbury?

People I was never acquainted with or heard a Word of in my Life.

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If the Account be true they give of Burgess I must confess I wou’d be well enough pleas’d to be acquainted with him; for I love a Pulpit Droll as I love my Life.

I am sure one of those reverend Jackpuddings is much more tolerable than a solemn Rum who neither knows himself nor will let his Audience know what he wou’d be at: As it much better, I take it, to get a little laughing for one’s Money than to be humm’d asleep.

As for the Infidel hinted at in the Blank I have nothing to say: He’s in too high a Station, it may be, or too fine a Gentleman for me to trouble my Head about.

But all this is beside the Merits of the Cause.

For that Paper, Sir, which you publish’d on Tuesday the 27th of March last as a Ridicule, I presume, on Cock Matches, has more Venom lying at the Bottom (latet Anguis in Herba.).

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It is a political Satyr, and intended to poison the Minds of the People and stir up Sedition and Animosities.

I smelt the Rat before I went thro’ the half of it, and saw the wicked Design of the Authors without the Help of Spectacles.

Is not ****** visibly intended by the King of Bantam?

And is it not as clear as Sunbeam, that the Sultan of Achan is no other than the King of Bulfast?

The Character of Cadwallader is so clear, that it would but Loss of Time and an Affront to the Reader to attempt to explain it.

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I was not, its true, brought up in the Secretary’s Office nor bred to the Art of Decyphering, but I can, without Vanity, wind a T————d at a moderate Distance as well as another; an Accomplishment that, however trivial it may appear, I wish some of my Betters were Masters of.

I am really concern’d that Gentlemen shou’d bring themselves into Trouble; but if they will knock their Heads against a Post I can’t hinder them. I wou’d not willingly turn Informer; but I am concern’d, as all honest Men are, to contribute to the preserving the Peace and Tranquility of my Country, which is too visibly disturb’d by the virulent and seditious Libel against which I now write, and which I have so plainly detected [desected?].

I expect you will do me Justice to insert this in your next, as a small Attonement for the Injuries you have done to

Sir Yours, &co. R——d Mc D.——l.

P.S. Kennedy is no as well and in as good Order as the Day I first enter’d him. I hope to make good Diversion with him yet, and to be fully satisfy’d with his Performance.

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[This letter shows an early clash between press freedom and possible libel. It refers to an exchange in missing 1738 News Letters and to a March 13 1738 report — March 24 1739 in the modern calendar — about a cockfight in Randalstown, serialised last month. The unnamed author had claimed that a Randal McDonnell, sometimes spelt McDonald, had had his own blood ‘surreptitiously’ used against him in an Antrim cockfight, a fight between gamecocks, by ‘Dunean men’. The men wrote on March 27 — April 7 in the modern calendar — to deny that. In this reply, McDonnell — whose name for some reason is partly blanked out — implies publication has damaged his friendship with News Letter founder Francis Joy]