3l8 THOUGHT? UPON HUNTING, 



To thofe who may think the danger which at- 

 tends upon hunting a great objedlion \o the pur- 

 fuit of it, I mull; beg leave to obferve, that the 

 accidents which are occalioned by it are very 

 iew. I will venture to fay, that more bad acci- 

 dents happen to fhooters in one year than to 

 thole who follow hounds in feven. You will re- 

 mind me, perhaps, of the death of T k, and 



the fall of D 1 ; but do accidents never hap- 

 pen on the road? the moll famous huntfman and 

 boldeft rider of his time, after having hunted a 

 pack of hounds for feveral years unhurt, loll his 

 life at laft by a fall from his horfe as he was re- 

 turning home. A furgcon of my acquaintance 

 lias affurcd me, that in thirty years practice, in a 

 Iporting country, he had not once an opportu- 

 nity of fetting a bone for a fportfman, though 

 ten packs of hounds were kept in the neighbour- 

 hood. This gentleman furely mull have been 

 much out of luck, or huntins; cannot be lb dan- 

 gcrous as it is thought. Bclides, tl^ey are all 

 timid animals that we purfue, nor is there any 

 danger in attacking them : they are not like llic 

 furious beaft of the Ge'vaudaUy which, as a French 

 author informs us, an army of 20,000 French 

 chaffeuis went out in vain to kill. 



If my time in writing to you fliould not have 

 been io well employed as it might have hQcu^yoii 

 at Icall will not find that fault with it; nor fliall 



I repent 



