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place, and found the entire skeleton except™the skull, which was about seven 
yards off, lying at the bottom of a precipice of about 200 yards, His fishing 
rod was at the top, and a small bundle about half way down. 
‘Tn contradiction of the report that the dog had eaten his master, I have to 
state, from the opinion of some well-informed people in the neighbourhood, 
that from the frequency of the carcases of animals being devoured by birds of 
prey (which assemble there in great numbers), there can be little doubt that his 
body had fallen a sacrifice to those voracious birds. About an hour after he set 
out from Patterdale a great quantity of hail fell, accompanied with a heavy fog, 
which continued over the mountain the whole day, so that it is most probable 
he had missed his way, when he met with the fatal accident, and was not 
taking a view of the adjoining mountains, as has been intimated. His remains 
were collected and decently interred in the Friend’s burying ground at Tirril on 
the 22nd. The deceased was born in the Society of Quakers, of which he 
remained a member till about two years ago, when (in conformity with the 
professed principles of the Society) he was excluded for joining a Volunteer 
Corps.” 
A comparison of these two accounts in the Cumberland Pacquet 
leaves no doubt on one’s mind as to which was the better informed 
of the two correspondents. In the former there is complete 
ignorance of the date when Gough was lost, and of the hailstorm 
and fog that probably led to his fall from Striding Edge, and the 
writer’s one idea appears to be to account for the “uncommonly 
fat” condition of the dog and her litter, found near her master’s 
remains. 
The latter correspondent has evidently made himself acquainted 
with much detail, he has seen the letter in the Carlisle Fournad, 
contradicts flatly, upon what he considers good authority from the 
lips of some “well-informed people in the neighbourhood,” the 
sinister suggestion that the dog had fattened upon her master’s 
body, and pooh-poohs the suggestion that Gough perished of cold 
as he sat making a sketch. 
The letter is the letter of a well-read man, and emanated 
probably from a certain member of the Friends’ Society named 
John Slee, who was a noted scholar, and kept an advanced school 
or academy near Tirril in those days. 
Such were the contemporary accounts which have furnished 
writers all the way down to to-day with their accounts of Gough’s 
