257 



BOMBARDMENT. 



BONA FIDES. 



258 



lance corporal in the line. There are a certain number of bombardiers 

 to each company of artillery. 



BOMBARDMENT. This is the action of throw-ing shells, car- 

 casses, and shot into an enemy's town in order to destroy the 

 buildings, and chiefly the military magazines; for which purpose 

 niortar, howitzer, and gun-batteries are constructed in convenient 

 situations, generally opposite to the most densely inhabited quarters. 

 If the town is a seaport, bomb-vessels also are moored along the 

 shore, and the firing is kept up simultaneously on the knd and sea- 

 sides of the place. 



When an army invests a fortress, whether it proceed against it by 

 the operations of a regular siege, or simply keep it in a state of blockade, 

 a bombardment is one of the means resorted to in order to accelerate 

 the surrender, by rendering its occupation dangerous to the citizens, 

 and ruining the buildings in which the ammunition is secured, or in 

 which the garrison while not on duty find repose. 



Among civilised nations it has become a principle to spare as 

 much as possible the lives and property of individuals who are not 

 actually engaged in the military service of the state against which 

 an army is employed ; since, besides the cruelty of acting otherwise, 

 the object in view, which is the final termination of hostilities, is 

 not in the smallest degree advanced. The practice of besieging for- 

 tresses is now go far reduced to a regular process that the time of their 

 surrender may be confidently anticipated by so employing the artillery 

 that, while it effectually dismounts that of the enemy, and lays the 

 rampart in ruins in the ditch, it scarcely produces the smallest injury 

 to any but the defenders of the works : hence the simple bombard- 

 ment of towns occurs so much less frequently now than in former 

 times, and no circumstance is considered as a justification of the 

 measure except the absolute inability to reduce a place by other 

 means. 



When a town is, from the fate of war, about to become subject to 

 a bombardment, the garrison should endeavour to retard the calamity 

 by the erection of advanced works about the place, or by keeping 

 troops in the suburbs and neighbouring villages as long as possible. 

 By this measure provisions, materials, and even workmen will be 

 obtained in abundance for the service of the defenders ; the inhabitants 

 of the fortress also, finding that the garrison is not shut up within the 

 walls, will be inspired with confidence in its protecting power, and 

 thus induced to suffer less unwillingly the privations and dangers to 

 which they must inevitably become exposed. The enemy moreover 

 will be compelled either to abstain from constructing a line of counter- 

 rallation, as it is called, to prevent the sorties of the garrison; or, if 

 such is attempted, the line must be so extensive as to require a long time 

 for its formation, and the works constituting it must be so far asunder 

 as to render it impossible to watch the avenues of the place with suffi- 

 cient care to prevent all communication between the town and country. 

 The power of acting offensively may thus be not wholly taken away 

 from the garrison, and the enemy may be kept at such a distance as to 

 lessen materially the effect of the bombardment. What has been said 

 must not be understood to imply that any village, suburb, or building, 

 which by falling into the power of the enemy might facilitate bis 

 operations, is not to be destroyed before he can get possession of it ; 

 but it ps evident that the object in view, which is the preservation of 

 the place, and of its docks and arsenals, if it be a naval station, will be 

 most effectually obtained by keeping the enemy as long as possible at a 

 distance from them beyond the range of his artillery. 



The garrison must of course employ a fire of the heaviest artillery 

 to destroy the enemy's batteries as soon as they are formed. The 

 casemates and blindages in the town should be repaired and mul- 

 tiplied ; and the ammunition should be kept in small quantities in 

 each, in order to avoid the loss and damage which would be occasioned 

 by the explosion of a large, and full magazine ; for which reason also, 

 it should be disposed in the quarters least subject to the fire of the 

 enemy. Wells and cisterns should be protected by shell-proof blindages, 

 the fire-engines carefully secured, and companies of men formed whose 

 duty should be to proceed immediately with the engines to any spot 

 where a fire may have broken out. The utmost intrepidity is required 

 in men employed on this service, which is rendered particularly 

 dangerous, because the enemy always continues to direct his fire 

 towards any spot at which flames are seen to rise, in order to prevent 

 if possible the defenders from extinguishing them. When red-hot 

 shot are thrown into a town, men should always be appointed to seek 

 them and, by pincers or otherwise, remove them to places where they 

 can do no harm. 



A strict police is to be maintained, and every precaution used to 

 prevent conspiracies among the citizens for delivering up the place. 

 Fr now, since the loss. of a town does not, as in ancient warfare, 

 entail upon the inhabitants the loss of life or liberty, it is easy to con- 

 ceive that their interest in their property must unavoidably lead them 

 to desire the cessation of the bombardment, though at the price of the 

 transfer of the town to the enemies of their country ; and it must be 

 expected that they will use every means in their power, whether of 

 persuasion or force, to compel the commander to surrender. 



The most celebrated bombardment* mentioned in history nre those 

 of Gibraltar, Copenhagen, Algiers, and Sebastopol. The first of these 

 places was invested on the land-side by a Spanish army, which was 

 afterwards united to that of France, and on the sea-side by the com- 



ART A>'D SCI. DIV. VOL. II. 



bined fleets of the two nations. The investment took place in 1779, 

 but no remarkable actions occurred till 1782. The town was twice 

 distressed for want of provisions ; the highest works of the fortress, 

 though 1340 feet above the level of the enemy's batteries, were 

 destroyed by shells from the latter several times ; attempts were also 

 made by the besiegers both to fire the ships in the harbour and to 

 annoy the British army by gun-boats. 



On the other hand, the garrison was employed in strengthening the 

 old fortifications and adding new batteries, and in making occasional 

 sorties against the Spanish lines. In the last-mentioned year, however, 

 the besiegers converted some of their large ships into floating batteries, 

 which, on September 13, commenced a tremendous fire on the town, 

 while the land-batteries cannonaded the works in flank and rear ; the 

 garrison, in return, paying little attention to these, poured on the 

 ships a fire of carcases, shells, and red-hot balls. This work of 

 destruction continued on both sides till about seven or eight P.M., 

 when it nearly ceased. The utmost confusion and distress by this time 

 prevailed in the fleet of the besiegers ; several of their largest ships 

 had caught fire, and two of them blew up with tremendous explosion. 

 The general peace, which was made in the beginning of the next year, 

 put an end to this memorable siege after it had been carried on nearly 

 four years. 



The bombardment of Copenhagen took place in 1807, and was 

 effected by a British army under Lord Cathcart, which closely invested 

 the city on the land side, while the fleet under Admiral Gambier 

 blockaded the harbour. The fire from the land-batteries and bomb- 

 vessels opened on the evening of September 2, and continued till the 

 night of September 4, when a capitulation took place. In this bom- 

 bardment the rockets invented by Sir William Congreve were used for 

 the first time ; and it is said that the cathedral, with above 300 houses, 

 was destroyed by the shot and shells which were thrown into the town. 

 Another action of this nature occurred in 1816, when the united fleets 

 of England and Holland, consisting of fifteen ships of war, besides gun- 

 boats, under the command of Lord Exmouth, bombarded Algiers. The 

 firing continued during twelve hours, in which time all the enemy's 

 ships in the harbour were destroyed and great part of the town. 



The last bombardment was that of Sebastopol, which can perhaps 

 hardly be strictly termed a bombardment, as though a good deal of the 

 fire was directed on the town, the principal part was on the works. 

 The following is a return of the shot and shell expended by the English 

 alone in the six successive bombardments : In the first bombard- 

 ment, commencing October 17th, 1854, 72 siege guns were employed, 

 and they fired 21,881 rounds. In the second, commencing April 9th, 



In the third, commencing June 6th, 

 In the fourth, commencing June 17th, 

 In the fifth, commencing August 17th, 

 And in the sixth and final bombard- 

 ment of the 8th of September, 207 guns and mortars fired 28,476 

 rounds. In addition to this, 88,640 rounds were fired at different 

 times, between the regular bombardments, and 405 rounds of carcases 

 and Hylit-balU, giving a total of 251,872 rounds of shot and shell fired 

 during the whole siege, or about 6000 rounds a week. The expenditure 

 of ammunition by the fleet was also enormous, as the Agamemnon 

 alone, in the attack of the 17th of August, in about four hours fired 

 more than 3000 rounds. 



BOMBAZINE (from the Greek ;8<!/43u{, which signifies both the silk- 

 worm and the silk produced by it) is a woven fabric in which the warp 

 is formed of silk, and the weft, or shoot, of worsted. The worsted is 

 thrown on the right side, which has a twill upon it. The manufacture 

 originated in Norwich, among the Dutch who were settled in that 

 city, about 1575. Bombazines were formerly made of various colours, 

 but owing to changes of fashion they are now manufactured almost 

 entirely in black, and are now only used, and that to a limited extent, 

 as mourning. 



BOMBIC ACID. The silkworm, especially in the chrysalis state, 

 contains an acid liquor, and hence the name of bombic acid. It was 

 discovered from the circumstance of blue paper, which had been acci- 

 dentally laid near these insects while changing to the state of chry- 

 salis, being found covered with red spots, as if drops of acid had been 

 Hpilled upon it. 



When the insect is subjected to pressure it also yields a liquor from 

 which alcohol precipitates mucilage, oil, and glutinous matter, and 

 leaves bombic acid in solution ; by evaporating this there is obtained 

 an acid pungent fluid of an amber colour, which reddens vegetable blue 

 colours, and forms salts with the alkalies, earths, and metallic oxides, 

 which have been called bombiates. 



This acid product has not been examined of late years, and is 

 scarcely noticed by modern authors. Neither its nature nor that of its 

 salts is accurately known ; and it is not even certain that it is a peculiar 

 acid. It is probable that a re-examination would show that it is similar 

 to the formic acid, or acid of ants. 



BONA FIDES and BONA FIDE is an expression often used in the 

 conversation of common life. It is also often in the mouths of lawyers, 

 and it occurs in acts of parliament, where (in some cases at least) it means 

 that the act referred to must not be done to evade the law, or in fraud 

 of the law, as we sometimes express it, following the Roman phraseology, 

 in fraudem legis. It appears to be used pursuant to the meaning of the 

 words, in the room of good faith, which implies the absence of all 



s 



123 guns fired 30,633 rounds. 

 155 guns fired 32,883 rounds. 

 166 guns fired 22,684 rounds. 

 196 guns fired 26,270 rounds. 



