5703. a new improvement tn the art military 144 
size, without any wheel carriages, carried «iso on a kind 
of litter, by a greater number of horses, can be let down 
and fired on any ground, and quickly taken up again and 
carried off if need be. It-is these pieces that are distin- 
guifhed by the above terms. 
This invention was first offered to be discovered to the 
board of artillery in Britain many years ago; but altho’ 
the late general Roy, who had seen the experiments | 
made with these guns, and understood the principle on 
which they were constructed, greatly approved of them, 
yet the noble duke at the head of the ordnance board 
persisted in rejecting them; because, in his opinion, nobo- 
dy but a profefiona/ man could understand the principles 
of artillery!!! _ 
The inventor was afterwards in France ; when he com- 
municated the secret'to la Fayette, who grasped at it as 
‘a discovery of the utmost importance ia the art of war, to 
whoever fhould first avail themselves of it. From Fayette 
‘Dumourier, as 1 may say, inherited it ; and it was chiefly 
to cas circumstance that he himself attributed the deci- 
sive victory he obtained at the battle of Jemappe, without 
which he was confident that all his efforts would have proved 
vain. Every advantage the Frenchhave since gained in 
the field, the allies have been conscious could be ascribed 
to no other cause ; as the French troops were in every 
other respect greatly inferior to those opposed to them. 
Having gained pofsefsion of some of these kinds of artil- 
lery, the sllies, it now appears, have adopted them. It 
docs not seem that Prince Cobourg has thought they 
fhould be rejected though not invented dy a profefsional 
man, And he wilinow be able to fight the French with 
their own weapons, and thus meet them on equal terms. 
This invention could be applied to some other uses, 
which, in the present situation of things, if adopted, might 
probably prove in a very fhort time decisive of the war. 
