Charles Nottidge Macnamara

The Story of an Irish Sept

J.M. Dent, 1896. Reprinted by Martin Breen, 1999.

I left choice of time, place and weapons to the Colonel, who took out his watch with an air of great sans froid and said in two hours time (it then being five o'clock) he would meet me on Primrose Hill, with pistols, saying all gentlemen fought with these weapons...We were all in less than hour on Primrose Hill, where we waited a long time...Poor Montgomery arrived at last, but with a different mien to what I saw in him two hours before. The ground was measured; to level together and fire when we liked. He fired first and wounded me; I fired afterwards, fatally, as the ball passed through his heart

Letter from Captain James Macnamara to his brother John, April 1803. A relatively trivial incident had led to the duel. Their dogs had got into a fight in Hyde Park and Colonel Montgomery had reacted furiously, using such insulting language that Macnamara felt he had to respond. He was tried for manslaughter at the Old Bailey, and called Admiral Lord Nelson, under whom he had served, to testify that he was 'the reverse of a quarrelsome man.' Despite being instructed by the judge that on the evidence they had to convict, the jury found him not guilty.