160 THE PERCUSSION GUN. 



Sometime ago, a percussion gun was put into my hands by 

 Mr. R. Gill, of Richmond, in Yorkshire, of which I made a 

 trial, and found that it shot remarkably well I found it, in fact, 

 much superior to the ordinary fowling piece, and this superiority 

 arose not intirely perhaps from the use of percussion priming, 

 but from the excellence of the bore and firmness of the work- 

 manship ; yet, the indescribable rapidity of the discharge, the 

 increase of force, with little more than half the common charge 

 of gunpowder, were advantages too tempting to be abandoned ; 

 and I, therefore, resolved to adopt the percussion gun. 



Manton contrived a method of firing with percussion priming 

 very different from Forsyth's, and perhaps on the whole inferior, 

 as the primings were made into small cakes, one of which being 

 fixed in an iron plug, the latter was placed in the mouth of the 

 cock, as it were, and by striking on the touch-hole (made in the 

 end of the breech, which is in the form of an inclined plane), 

 discharged the gun. Manton accommodated his customers with 

 fifty of these iron plugs, which were understood to be sufficient 

 for the day's amusement ; and being primed before setting out, 

 were carried in the pocket, and used as occasion required. Car- 

 rying these plugs was obviously an inconvenience ; in fact, the 

 contrivance altogether bore no marks of extraordinary genius. 

 Forsyth brought an action against Mr. Manton in consequence, 

 for an infringement of his patent, and succeeded in putting a 

 stop to Mr. Manton's sale of these guns. 



As the application of percussion powder to the fowling-piece 

 excited so much surprise, and appeared so advantageous, it was not 

 lono- before a number of inventions made their appearance, each* 

 professing to be the best mode of adopting it. To say nothing 

 of Forsyth's magazine, Manton's pegs, or Webster's wire, twenty 

 other plans at least might be enumerated many of which had 

 a very neat and even a beautiful appearance ; but which were 

 generally found defective in the field either from a hazy atrno- 



