and 200 men, which would drive any British sloop of war off the station, or carry her into Basseterre in triumph. The party neither could, nor would, assent to the truth of this last assertion; but as he maintained it in a manner very offensive to the feelings of the naval gentlemen, who had hitherto been silent, Captain Henderson at last thought himself called on to notice it, and briefly told this well-known hero of the trigger, that if he repeated his assertion, he would throw him out of the window; on which Blair quitted the company, and in a few minutes sent a challenge to the Captain, who accepted it, intimating at the same time that, as he was the person challenged, he should choose his own ground, and that he meant to fight Blair across a handkerchief, each holding an end, and the antagonists foot to foot. At the appointed hour next morning. Captain Henderson and his second went to the ground, where Blair’s friend soon after joined them, alone, and said he was desired by Blair to make an apology for the latter’s non-appearance, as urgent business compelled him to leave the island, and he regretted having hurt the feelings of the naval part of the company. Thus ended Captain Henderson’s very singular affair of honor, which he fortunately managed in such a way as to incur no risk of either life or reputation: by conduct less firm and spirited he would most probably have lost the former; for Blair, both before and afterwards, was but too successful in destroying men of worth and respectability. The last who fell by his hand was an officer of high rank, at Demerara.
Having been posted by the Admiralty previous to his departure from the West Indies, Captain Henderson was superseded immediately after the Pheasant’s arrival in England; and he does not appear to have held any other command until the summer of 1808, when he was appointed, pro tempore, to the Agincourt 64. His subsequent appointments, during the war, were to the Champion 24, employed in the Baltic; Dublin 74, in a course of equipment; and Tigris frigate, fitting for the Irish station.
Agent.– Sir Francis M. Ommanney.
