59-. 



ARTILLERY. 



ARTILL-ERY. 



588 



they ordered it to be recharged, and the chamber perfectly cleaned of 

 all that remained within it, which was doue, and an iron ball weighing 

 five hundred weight, put into its mouth, before which stood John 

 Maugue, the founder of it. As the ball rolled down the bombard, by 

 some unknown accident the powder in the chamber took fire before 

 the match was put to it, and by its discharge tore in pieces John 

 Maiigne* and fourteen other persons, whose heads, legs, anas and bodies 

 were blown into the air. The ball killed a poor innocent bird-catcher 



that was attending his nets in the fields, and the bursting of the 

 bombard maimed fifteen or sixteen others, several of- whom died ; so 

 that by this accident twenty-two or twenty-three persons lost their 

 The remains of John Maugul were collected, put on a bier, 

 and carried to St. Merry for interment ; and proclamation was made 

 through the streets of Paris that all people should pray for the soul of 

 John Maugue', who had lost his life in the king's service." (Johnes's 

 ' Monstrelet,' 4to., vol. iv. p. 402-403. In 1477, when Louis XI. made 

 his attack upon different towns of Flanders and Picardy, he ordered 

 bombards of prodigious length and weight to be cast at Paris, Tours, 

 Orleans, and Amiens. His iron bullets were cast at the foundries at 

 'r.-il, and his stone bullets made at the same time in the quarries near 

 to Peronne. 



About the middle of the 14th century, fusible metals were employed, 

 on the continent, in the construction of cannon, especially bronze, 

 which combines suitable tenacity with moderate hardness. Guns were 

 not cast in England till 1521, in the reign of Henry VIII., when 

 brass guns were cast, and iron guns about 1547. Both Henry VII. 

 and Henry VIII. appear to have been very anxious to foster the 

 science of artillery in England, employing a number of Flemish 

 gunners for that purpose. Guns were at this period cast hollow, the 

 bore being formed by a core which was kept suspended in the centre 

 of the hollow mould into which the metal was run, and which formed 

 the cast. 



It is probably bronze that Stowe alludes to in a passage of his 

 ' Annals.' He says, " this year, 1535, John Owen began to make brass 

 ordnance, as cannons, culverines, and such like. He was the first 

 Englishman that ever made that kind of artillery in England ; his issue 

 of his name and the name of Pitt have continued unto the days oi 

 King James most ready and exquisite gun-makers for the general ser- 

 vice of the kingdom." A beautiful specimen of this sort of ordnance, 

 cast at Utrecht in 1544, and presented by the States of Holland to 

 Queen Elizabeth, is still preserved at Dover Castle. Other specimens, 

 both English and foreign, a little later in period, may be seen at the 

 Tower of London, and in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, as well as in 

 many of the foreign arsenals. The sizes of cannon, generally speaking, 

 in the 16th century, were considerably diminished, and forms of greater 

 elegance were given to their exterior. 



Robert Borthwick, an artist in the service of King James IV. oi 

 Scotland, had attempted the establishment of a foundry at Edinburgh 

 a short time previously. Some of his guns, which remained in Lesly's 

 time, had this inscription : ' Machina sum Scoto Borthuik fabricata 

 Roberto.' 



The largest cast cannon now existing is a brass one at Bejapoor 



called Malick 6 Meidan, ' the lord of the plain ;' it was cast in comme 



i moration of the capture of that place by the Emperor Alum Geer, in 



1685. Its extreme length is 14 feet 1 inch ; the diameter of its bore 



2 feet 4 inches. An iron shot for this gun of proper size would weigh 



' pounds. 



For Jtiiriari we are indebted to workmen who were employed b; 

 Henry VIII., and for cast-iron ordnance to the reign of Edward VI 



Tnder the year 1543, Stowe says, " King Henry, minding wars with 

 France, made great preparation and provision, as well of munitions and 

 irtillery, as also of brasse ordnances, amongst which, at that time, by 

 one Peter Bawd, a Frenchman born, a gun-founder, or maker of great 

 mlnance, and one other alien, called Peter Van Collen, a gunsmith, 

 ooth the king's feed men, who conferring together, devised and caused 

 to be made certain mortar-pieces, being at the mouth from eleven 

 inches to nineteen inches wide ; for the use whereof the said Peter and 

 Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of cast-iron, to be stuffed 

 with fire-work or wild-fire, whereof the bigger sort for the same had 

 screws of iron to receive a match to carry fire kindled, that the fire- 

 work might be set on fire, for to break in small pieces the same hollow 

 shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting any man would kill or spoil 

 him. And after the king's return from Boulogne, the said Peter Bawd 

 by himself, in the first of Edward VI., did also make certain ordnance 

 of cast-iron, of divers sorts and forms, as fawconet, fawkons, minions, 

 sakers, and other pieces. Unto this Bawd, John Johnson, his covenant 

 servant, surviving his master, did likewise make and cast iron ordnance 

 cleaner and to better perfection, to the great xise of this land. His son 

 Thomas Johnson is yet living, a special workman. In the year 1595 

 he made forty-two cast pieces of great ordnance of iron for the Earl of 

 Cumberland, demy cannons, weighing 6000, or three ton the piece." 

 (' Annals,' edit. 1631, p. 584.) 



It appears from Sir William Monson's ' Naval Tracts,' that the Falcon 

 was a species of ordnance of two inches and a half bore ; weight of shot 

 two pounds ; that the Deml-G'ttlverin was another kind, of four inches 

 bore ; weight of the shot nine pounds and a half : and that the Myninn 

 was another of three inches and a half bore ; weight of the shot four 

 pounds. The Oalreriu was a species of ordnance of five inches and a 

 half bore ; weight of the shot seventeen pounds and a half. The 

 Fmder is not described by Monson, but is mentioned by Lodge in his 

 ' Illustrations of British History,' vol. i. p. 4, as in use hi the time of 

 James I. The Sacar or Saker, according to Mouson, was a piece of 

 ordnance of three inches and a half bore ; weight of shot five pounds 

 and a half. 



The invention of Petards is due to the French civil wars. They 

 were first used by the Huguenots in 1580, at the siege of Conors in 

 Quercy. (Du Thou, torn. viii. p. 376.) Montelimar and Embrun in 

 Dauphine' were taken by LesdigeceYes in 1585, principally by means of 

 petards. (Ibid. torn. ix. pp. 404, 405.) According to Pere Daniel 

 (cited in ' L'Art de Verifier les Dates,' torn. i. p. 655), red-hot balls, 

 revived in 1782 at Gibraltar, were used by Marshal Matignon during 

 the siege of La Fere in 1580. But we learn from Elmham's ' Life of 

 Henry V.,' p. 155, that they had an earlier origin. He says, that when 

 an English army, commanded by the Duke of Gloucester, besieged 

 Cherbourg in 1418, the besieged discharged red-hot balls of iron 

 from their cannon (" massas ferreas rotundas, igneis candentes fer- 

 voribus a saxivomorum faucibus studuerunt emittere ") into the 

 English camp, to bum the huts in which the soldiers were lodged. 



The Homtzer, an improvement upon the mortar, is said to have 

 been invented by Belidor, and was first used at the siege of Ath in 

 1697. The Carronade, a sort of short camion, or rather long howitzer, 

 was invented by General Robert Melville, about the year 1779. 



Iron Sockets of different sizes, varying in weight from sixteen to 

 more than forty pounds, were invented during the last war by Sir 

 William Congreve, and are now called Congreve Rockets. They were 

 first used at the bombardment of Copenhagen, afterwards against the 

 Boulogne flotilla, then at Flushing, and subsequently at the battle of 

 Leipzig. A rocket establishment now forms a regular branch of the 

 British military service. 



It was not till about the beginning of the 18th century that guns 

 were cast solid, as at present. A man of the name of Marity, who hail 

 a foundry at Geneva, offered his invention, of boring guns that were 

 cast solid, to the court of France, by whom it was accepted. At 

 Lyon, where he was first established, and afterwards at Strasbourg, 

 he constructed guns on this plan, which were found on trial to be very 

 successful. From Fosbrooke we take the following table of the ordnance 

 used in the time of Elizabeth, and shortly before her reign, and it is 

 surprising to see how little we have changed the calibres or diameter 

 of bore of our guns during this period, exactly three centuries since 

 her accession to the throne. 



Cannon Royal 

 Cannon Serpentine 

 Bastard . . 

 Demi Cannon 

 Petro 

 Culverin 

 Demi Culverin 

 Backer . . 



Pounder. Inches. Pounder. 



06 Diiim. of boie 8J Answering to our 08 or 8 in. gun. 



531 

 41 

 33 

 M 



H 



7 

 7 

 6} 



56 

 42 

 32 

 24 

 18 

 9 

 I 



The reason for retaining the old calibres has evidently been, that 

 on the introduction of each improved form of gun, it was made to suit 

 some class of ammunition, already in the service, which would other- 

 wise be wasted. 



From that time to the present the form and construction of guns 

 have been gradually improved, both in heavy ordnance and in light 

 or field artillery. Gustavus Adolphus was the first who introduced 



