Note 107 — Chapter V

As in the interval between these two battles, Mr. Fletcher Reid, a great patron and backer of the Belchers, paid the “debt of nature,” this seems the right place for a brief obituary notice which we find in the journals:—“On Thursday morning, January the 24th (1807), died, at Shepperton, Surrey, where he had resided for the last two years, Mr. Fletcher Reid, well-known in the sporting world, particularly as one of the greatest patrons of gymnastic genius. The evening preceding he had spent jovially amongst some select companions, and retired to rest at rather a late hour. In the morning his servant found him dead. Mr. Fletcher Reid was a native of Dundee, in Scotland, near to which he had succeeded to estates, by the death of his mother, which afflicting intelligence he had received only two days previous to his decease. He left a wife and two children, who for some time past had resided with his mother.” The following lines, rather questionable in taste, appeared in a monthly publication some time afterwards:—

“In the still of the night, Death to Shepperton went,

And there catching poor Fletcher asleep,

He into his wind such a finisher sent,

That no longer ‘the time’ could he keep.

“Thus forced to give in, we his fate must lament,

While the coward, grim Death, we must blame,

For if in the morn he to Shepperton went,

He feared Fletcher’s true science and game.

“Then repose to his ashes, soft rest to his soul,

For harmless was he through life’s span,

With the friend of his bosom, enjoying the bowl,

And wishing no evil to man.”

“February, 1807.”