ne of the largest of which I sent to my friend, Jack Bluet, who
lived in a small house at Falmouth. It might have served him for a
drawing-room table. I hope he has got it still. A little way beyond
where I found the wounded man I came on the body of an officer. He lay
on his back, shot through the heart, his hand grasping a very handsome
fusee, and with a look of defiance still on his countenance. I suspect
he had been bush-fighting in Indian fashion, in hopes of checking the
advance of his enemies, in spite of the flight of his companions in
arms. He was a fine young man, and from his style of dress and general
appearance was evidently of respectable family. I stooped down, and,
undoing the grasp with which the dead man's fingers held the fusee, took
possession of it and ran after my companions. Still, as I hurried on,
the look worn by the features of the dead officer haunted me. I felt as
if I had been depriving him of his property. I thought of his mother
and sisters, or perhaps a young wife, who were doomed never to see him
again, or of friends who might be expecting to meet him that very day,
and for a moment all the dreadful results of warfare presented
themselves before me more vividly than they had ever before done. The
laughter and jokes of my companions, however, very quickly drove all
such thoughts from my mind. We had been joined by an acquaintance of
mine, Simeon, a midshipman of the Phoenix, who had with him the gunner
and seven men. By some means or other I had been separated from Mr
Heron and my boat's crew--indeed, my lieutenant had no particular fancy
for my society, so I joined company with Simeon, and together we rambled
into the woods. We had not gone far when we caught sight of a fellow
skulking among the trees. When he saw that he was observed he took to
his heels, and this of course made us give chase. The woods rang with
our shouts and cries, and we were not long before we came up with the
man, who proved to be a rebel militiaman. He sang out most lustily for
mercy, thinking that we were going to kill him, but we soon quieted his
fears on that score by assuring him that he was not worth powder and
shot. He seemed to be very grateful, and informed us that there had
been a smart skirmish in the wood between his party and a body of
Hessians, the latter of whom he believed were still in the neighbourhood
of the wood. Of the truth of part of his story the dead bodies
scattered here