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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
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