^% ^ O^ IlIMTARY R0CKET9. 



Us; and, I should think, there were few officers on thMt 

 service, who did not witness the ens ploy inent of rockets as 

 •* imj)lements of warfare.'* But this is not all, for in 

 Major Dirom*s «♦ Narrative of the Campaign in India, 

 179'2»'* we read of ** a heavy Hre of cannon, mnsqnetry, 

 *^* and rockets, opened from the works.'* The author adds, 

 indeed, that ** the Hre from the garrison was luckihj ill dl- 

 ^ •* rected." In other parts of the same volume, we have — 



** The eneuay's line, on being approached, opened upon 

 ** them {our troops) with giape, musquetry, and rockets." 

 — " The Sultan — sent a party of his people with rockets, to 

 ** disturb the camps durinj^ the night." In almost every 

 chapter we may observe the military rockets are named, as 

 well as rocket-boys, or those people, who had the chief 

 management of this department. We are frequently re- 

 minded by the Major of the great clumsiness of their wea- 

 pons, the bad discipline, the ill directed fire, and other 

 analogous instances of the rude state of these natives, which 

 show how far they are behind us in military science; we 

 must, notwithstanding all this, acknowledge, th^t in the 

 tt$€ of rockets as " implements of warfare" they have a 

 prior claim to any man in this country. 

 Striking m- But I do not rest upon this single authority, although 



this is dated full nineteen years ago ; for, in the 3d vol. of 

 the " Asiatic Researches," there is the following paragraph, 

 in an account of the bjsttie of Paniput,v on the 7th of 

 January, 176! — *' As the Uohillas had a great numher of 

 " rockets, they tired vollies of two thousand at a time, 

 ♦* which not only terrified the horbet* by their dreadful noise, 

 *' but did so muck executhn also^ that the enemy (the Mah- 

 '* rattas) could not advance to the charge." 



Hence, we must observe, the rockets were not appropriated 

 to purposes of mere amusement and show, but positively 

 •4^ implements of icarfaTe, ?nore than Ji/ti/ years back from 

 the present <^'dy; for we ought not to suppose, that tliese 

 instruments were ail invented and constructed on the very 

 day of the buttle uf Paul put. 



Having thus got iid of oiie object, I shall now take leafe 

 \^ resist another; which, as it hinges upon the la;?: infereiiice, 

 cerlainlv bland* upon no better foundation. 

 * ■ Id 



Stance of this 



