arrested and tried by jury at Winchester Assizes. The Judge Sir Justice H Dampier presided. Souper had a wife and children and expected acquittal or short imprisonment, but the jury returned the verdict of ‘Guilty of Murder’. Souper fainted but then, ‘pathetically’, apologised, saying he had no fear death having been in battle and having faced the West Indies climate. He protested: ‘Am I to get led to execution like the vilest felon’. Being a gentleman himself, Justice Dampier sympathised but passed a sentence of execution! The Justice, in addressing the Jury, lamented recent cases of a similar kind in that the court had not been able to deter gentlemen in the army from the odious practice of dueling; and explained that all persons concerned in a duel, either as principals or seconds, must, in case of death to either of the parties, be guilty of wilful murder, both by the laws of God and man, in as much as it was not the rash act of a passionate moment, but done generally deliberately in cold blood. Souper's execution was scheduled for later in the summer, being 27 August. After the conviction and by 4 August that year, Winchester Assizes received five petitions for Souper to be pardoned from the public and the army. The petitions came from: 21 officers of the Chasseurs Britanniques; 33 Lymington inhabitants; 35 other officers resident at the foreign military depot at Lymington; 36 other officers resident at foreign military depot, Lymington; From Souper's sister, Mrs Alshed. The Justice then used his powers to pardon Souper. In other words: he got away with it! The last recorded duel with pistols was in 1854, but it was generally outlawed in the British army before that following the Souper trial (and other similar incidents). In Snippets from long ago in Pennington, Joan Stephens notes that British Army magazine ‘The Soldier’ heralded this “the Army’s last duel” in an article written by Capt. O’Donavan. Stephens also notes that the Foreign Depot in Lymington had ‘long since gone but, until 1974 – when it was destroyed by vandals, stood the grim reminder in Lymington Churchyard of the Army’s last duel – a stone erected to the memory of John Dieterich late Lieut and Adjutant of the Foreign Depot who fell in a duel on the Common at Pennington’. What happened to Souper? Souper continued to receive half pay until