112 Observations on the 



ronades. The 42-pounder gun, until the year 1793, formed 

 the armament of the lower decks of all our first rates, and 

 weighed 63 or 65 cwt. ; so that even this heaviest of English 

 naval ordnance, which was dispensed with on account of its 

 unmanageable weight, was at least one-third of a ton lighter 

 than the truly powerful gun which still forms the principal arm 

 of the line-of-battle ships of the French navy, and the weight 

 of which has very recently been adopted by an author* of great 

 merit, as that which is sufficiently manageable. 



We now proceed to make a few remarks on the calibres of 

 ordnance used on board ship. The celebrated Robins, in a 

 tract, first printed in 1747, entitled *^ A Proposal for increasing 

 the Strength of the British Navy," fully points out the great 

 augmentation of force to be derived from using higher calibres ; 

 and Muller, in his Treatise of Artillery, in 1768, makes a simi- 

 lar proposition. The fact is, that the larger calibres possess the 

 great advantage of making greater breaches in an enemy's 

 hull ; their superiority of mass produces a greater momentum 

 with a given velocity, and their ranges are greater even with a 

 less proportional weight of powder. 



The calibres of our guns should never be much less than 

 those used on board the ships of other nations ; they may be 

 as much greater as possible. Experience has shown how much 

 our 18-pounder gun, the common armament of our most 

 numerous class of frigates, compromised their safety, when op- 

 posed to the 24-pounder of the American frigates, in the last 

 war. 



The Portuguese still use their 48-pounder, equivalent to 

 45.79 lbs. English calibre, for their heaviest ship gun, and the 

 Dutch their 32-pounder, equivalent to the calibre of 34.54 lbs. 

 avoirdupois : the Russians, Swedes, and Spaniards, use their 

 several 36-pounders, respectively, equal to the calibres of 31. 95, 

 33.73, and 34.42 lbs. avoirdupois. All these guns, except the 

 Russian, are, therefore, superior to our heaviest calibre, the 

 32-pounder. But this last gun, which forms the arm of the 

 lower decks of all our ships of the line, stands in a greater 

 ratio of inferiority with the French 36-pounder, than even the 



♦ M. Paixhans, Nouvelle Force Maritime, 1820. 



