I should tell you that I got a Hurt in my hand from a kind of short Chopper or Tommyhawk that one of the Savages carried. 'Twas fortunately my left hand, and seeming but a mere scratch, I thought little or nothing about it. But at the end of the second day it began to swell and swell to a most alarming size and tumorous discoloration, the inflammation extending right up my arm, even to my shoulder. Then it was agreed on all sides that the blade of the Tommyhawk with which I had been stricken must have been anointed with some subtle and deadly Poison, of the which not only the Maroons but the common Household and Town Negroes have many, preparing them themselves, and obstinately refusing, whether by hope of Reward or fear of punishment, to reveal the secret of their components to the Whites. I had to rest at the nearest Plantation to our battle-field; and the Planter--who had been a captain in the Chevalier de St. George's service (the old one), that had come out here, after the troubles of 1715, a Banished man, but had since been pardoned, and had taken to Planting, and grown Rich--was kind enough to permit me to be taken into his house and laid in one of his own Guest-chambers, where I was not only tended by his own Domestics, but was sometimes favoured with the Attention and sympathy of his angelic Wife, a young woman of most charming countenance and lively manners, most cheerful, pious, and Humane, taking great care of her slaves, physicking them frequently, reading to them little books written by persons of the Nonconforming persuasion,--a kind of doctrine that I never could abide,--and never suffering them to be whipped upon a Sunday. However, I grew worse; whereupon one Mr. Sprague, that set up for surgeon, but was more like a Boatswain turned landsman than that, or than a Horse, came to me, and was for cutting off my arm, to prevent mortification. There were two obstacles in the way of this operation's performance; the first being that Mr. Sprague had no proper instruments by him beyond a fleam and a syringe, with which, and with however good a will, you can scarcely sever a Man's limb from his Body; and the next that Mr. Sprague was not sober. Love for a young widow had driven him to drinking, it was said; but I think that it was more the Love of Liquor to which his bibulous backslidings were owing. 'Twas lucky for me that he had nor saw nor tourniquet with him. It is true that he departed in quest of some Carpenter's Tools, which he declared would do the job quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter,