Stephen duels with Canning

so here is the duel between love struck Maturin and the Jewish Mr Canning.

Maturin receives Canning's shot first, cracking a few ribs before embedding itself in his body (this is of course where the film draws it's sources from, with the epic self surgery!) he is then described as swapping hands before aiming and taking his turn on Canning (accidentally) missing his mark and killing the man.

Cpt Etherege of the Marines (maturin's second) and Cpt Aubrey are in the corner along with Canning's second, a surgeon, HMS Surprises surgeon and a few other people. i only put the first two in as it would have gotten too complex if they were all there.

i guess another point to make would be the cloths, or lack of them. As Maturin is a physician, he knows how evil cloth can turn once embedded inside a person with a shot, so he chooses to fight in his breeches, lessening the amount of cloth potentially drawn in by the shot. Canning went for the opposite, being described as turning up in a big black heavy coat, done up above his neck cloth. i guess he was suiting up in protection, hoping to repel a shot, despite the unbearable heat of the Calcuttan sun. this did him no good, at 20 paces away and Maturin's lethal shooting skills, no coat could work!!