The duke[23] was preparing for his journey, when he was challenged to a duel[24] by the Lord Mohun,[25] a person of infamous character. He killed his adversary upon the spot, though he himself received a wound; and, weakened by the loss of blood, as he was leaning in the arms of his second, was most barbarously stabbed in the breast by Lieutenant-General Macartney,[26] who was second to Lord Mohun. He died a few minutes after in the field, and the murderer made his escape. I thought so surprising an event might deserve barely to be related, although it be something foreign to my subject. [Footnote 23: James, Duke of Hamilton, was a gentleman of the bed-chamber to King Charles II. He succeeded his father in the title, April 18th, 1694, and was sent the same year envoy extraordinary to France; ... he was killed, November 15th, 1712. [S.]] [Footnote 24: Swift's account of the duel is exactly agreeable to the depositions of Colonel Hamilton before a committee of the council. [S.]] [Footnote 25: Charles Lord Mohun was the last offspring of a very noble and ancient family, of which William de Mohun, who accompanied the Norman conqueror, was the first founder in England. [S.]] [Footnote 26: General Macartney was tried, at the King's Bench bar, for the murder, June 13th, 1716; and the jury found him guilty of man-slaughter. [S.]] The Earl of Strafford, who had come to England in May last,[27] in order to give Her Majesty an account of the disposition of affairs in Holland, was now returning with her last instructions, to let the Dutch minister know, "That some points would probably meet with difficulties not to be overcome, which once might have been easily obtained: To shew what evil consequences had already flowed from their delay and irresolution, and to entreat them to fix on some proposition, reasonable in itself, as well as possible to be effected: That the Queen would insist upon the cession of Tournay by France, provided the States would concur in finishing the peace, without starting new objections, or insisting upon farther points: That the French demands, in favour of the Elector of Bavaria, appeared to be such as, the Queen was of opinion, the States ought to agree to; which were, to leave the Elector in possession of Luxembourg, Namur, and Charleroy, subject to the terms of their barrier, until he should be restored to his electorate; and to give him the kingdom of Sardinia, to efface the stain of his degradation in the electoral college: That the earl had brought over a project of a new Treaty of Succession and Barrier, which Her Majesty insisted the States should sign, before the conclusion of the peace; the former treaty having been disadvantageous to her subjects, containing in it the seeds of future dissensions, and condemned by the sense of the nation. Lastly, That Her Majesty, notwithstanding all provocations, had, for the sake of the Dutch, and in hopes of their recovery from those false notions which