Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/206

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means, with the assistance of the farmer's wife, to stop the further effusion of blood, and a messenger was dispatched for the most skilful surgeon in Brighton; but with strict orders not to mention the name of the gentleman, least his friends should be prematurely alarmed. The surgeon soon arrived, and found that the wound did not proceed from a ball, as had been apprehended, but from a cutlass; and that, though the patient was faint from loss of blood, there would be no danger, unless from a fever, the prevention of which would be the chief object of his regimen and medicinal applications; it was necessary in the first place, to keep the patient quiet. Leaving the room for that purpose, Hamilton had now an opportunity of learning the circumstances of the accident, which were briefly these: After parting with