Having next day gone to Mr. Burke’s seat in the country, from whence I was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded, I saw little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable part of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly occupied my mind.  Johnson.  ’I do not see, Sir, that fighting is absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not self-defence.’  Boswell.  ’The Quakers say it is; “Unto him that smiteth thee on one cheek, offer him also the other."’ Johnson.  ’But stay, Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense.  We see this from the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, “From him that would borrow of thee, turn thou not away.”  Let a man whose credit is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, “Well, Sir, lend me a hundred pounds;” he’ll find him as unwilling as any other man.  No, Sir, a man may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who attempts to break into his house.* So in 1745, my friend, Tom Gumming, the Quaker, said, he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better.’  Boswell.  ’When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a state of happiness?’ Johnson.  ’Sir, we are not to judge determinately of the state in which a man leaves this life.  He may in a moment have repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted by god.’

* I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling.  In my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that he made this frank confession:—­’Nobody at times, talks more laxly than I do;’ and, ib., p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], ’He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.’  We may, therefore, infer, that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel.—­Boswell.

Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; Johnson.  ’I hope he will go to America.’  Boswell.  ‘The Americans don’t want oratory.’  Johnson.  ‘But we can want Sheridan.’