e Ring, in Hyde
Park, a favourite duelling-ground of the time. The intervening night
hours Mohun and his satellite spent in debauchery in a low house of
pleasure.

In the cold, grey dawn of the following morning--the morning of 15th
November 1712--the principals and seconds appeared almost simultaneously
at the Ring--in the daytime the haunt of beauty and fashion, in the
early morning hours a desolate part of the Park--and the preliminaries
were quickly arranged. Turning to Macartney, the Duke said: "I am well
assured, sir, that all this is by your contrivance, and therefore you
shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton,
will entertain you." "I wish for no better partner," Macartney replied;
"the Colonel may command me."

A few moments later the double fight began with infinite fury. Swords
flashed and clattered; lunge and parry, parry and lunge followed in
lightning succession; the laboured breaths went up in gusts of steam on
the morning air. There was murder in two pairs of eyes, a resolve as
grim as death itself in the stern set faces of their opponents. Soon the
blood began to spurt and ooze from a dozen wounds; the Duke was wounded
in both legs; his adversary in the groin and arm. Faces, swords, the
very ground, became crimson. Colonel Hamilton had at last disarmed his
opponent, but the others fought on--gasping, reeling, lunging, feinting,
the strength ebbing with each thrust.

At last each made a desperate lunge at the other; the Duke's sword
passed clean through his adversary up to the very hilt; Mohun, reeling
forward, with a last effort shortened his sword and plunged it deep into
the Duke's breast. Colonel Hamilton rushed to his friend and raised him
in his arms, when Macartney, snatching up his fallen sword, drove it
into the dying man's heart, then took to his heels and made his way as
fast as horse and boat could carry him to Holland.

Before the Duke could be raised from the ground to which he had fallen,
he had drawn his last breath. A few moments later Mohun, too, succumbed
to his wounds--the "Dog Mohun," as Swift called him, lying in death but
a few yards from his victim.

"I am infinitely concerned," Swift wrote the same day,
"for the poor Duke, who was an honest, good-natured man.
I loved him very well, and I think he loved me better."

Thus, steeped in innocent blood, perished Charles Lord Mohun, who well
earned his unenviable title, "The wicked Baro