It is our duty to announce to the public an event which fortunately has not been attended with fatal consequences to the personages concerned. A meeting took place yesterday morning in Battersea-fields between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea.

In order to make the cause of the duel properly intelligible, we give the following extract from a letter from Lord Winchilsea to Mr Coleridge, the secretary for the committee for establishing the King's College, London.

"I was one who thought the proposed plan might prove an antidote to the principles of the London University. Late political events have convinced me that the whole transaction was intended as a blind to the protestant and high church party - that the noble Duke might the more effectually carry on his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of popery into every department of the state."

The closing letters must suffice. From the Duke to Lord Winchilsea: "My Lord - is a gentleman who happens to be the king's first minister, to submit to being insulted by any gentleman who thinks proper to attributed to him disgraceful or criminal motives for his behaviour? Your lordship is alone responsible for the consequences. I call upon your lordship to give me that satisfaction for your conduct which a gentleman never refuses to give."

From Lord Winchilsea. "My Lord - the satisfaction which your grace has demanded, it is of course impossible for me to decline."

The Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchilsea met at the appointed place. The parties having taken their ground, Lord Winchilsea received the Duke of Wellington's fire [apparently not aimed at him] and fired in the air. After some discussion the accompanying memorandum was accepted as a satisfactory reparation to the Duke of Wellington

"Having given the Duke of Wellington the usual satisfaction, I do not now hesitate to declare, of my own accord, that, in apology, I regret having unadvisedly published an opinion which the noble Duke states to have charged him with disgraceful and criminal motives in a certain transaction.

"I shall cause this expression of regret to be inserted in the Standard newspaper, as the same channel through which the letter in question was given to the public."

· The Duke of Wellington, as prime minister, introduced the final step in Catholic emancipation in 1829. The Earl of Winchilsea was an ultra Tory