On 16 November 1769 the following advertisement appeared in London's Daily Advertiser:

This apology, and the hundreds more like it that appeared in the London press between the 1740s and 1790s, give us a glimpse into the nature of altercations and one form of conflict resolution in eighteenthcentury London. It is not surprising that, given London's urban density, Londoners got into innumerable scrapes with one another. Some of these were serious, and were dealt with by the criminal and civil courts. Many more were resolved by conciliation, involving magistrates, neighbours, friends and family of the involved parties. Such resolution could be a substitute for the more formal avenues of recourse, or could be entered into during the legal processes, as a way of curtailing or bringing them to a close. We know that in the eighteenth century many cases which were brought to the magistrates either did not proceed further or were terminated before the courts delivered a verdict.