144 THE ARMS TRADE OF BELGIUM. 
making mortars and shells, "to be stuffed with firework or wild fire." 
Cannon were first cast about the middle of the fifteenth century, in Eng- 
land in 1521, when brass was used for the purpose. Iron guns were cast 
about 1547. Both kinds were then and down to the middle of last cen- 
tury cast hollow, the bore being formed by a core which was kept sus- 
pended in the centre of the mould. 
Portable or hand fire-arms did not appear till the fifteenth century. 
The earliest were the hand-cannon' and hand-guns, both with straight 
stocks and ignited by hand matches. Next came the arquebuse and 
musque, both on the match-lock principle (" serpentin "), a contrivance 
suggested by the trigger of the cross-bow to convey with instantaneous ac- 
tion the burning match to the pan. The arquebuse is first mentioned by 
Philip de Comines in his account of the battle of Morat in 1476. The 
wheel-lock ("rouet") invented at Nuremburg, or in Italy about 1517, 
soon supplanted the matchlock. It was a small machine for exciting 
sparks of fire by the friction of a furrowed wheel of steel against a piece 
of sulphuret of iron, and was moved by a spring like that of a match. 
The wheel-lock arquebuse was generally given to the cavalry, while 
infantry retained the matchlock on account of its greater economy. The 
snaphaunce again was an improvement on the wheel-lock, and was a 
near approach to the modern flint-lock. 
The flint-lock the capital improvement in fire-arms, originated in France 
about 1635, and has descended with little alteration to our own times. 
The simplicity of this new agent, the cock and flint, first allowed the use 
of fire-arms to become general. To this invention the Liege armourers' 
trade owes its prosperity and even its existence as a separate denomina- 
tion. The first exporters of arms from Liege were chiefly nail merchants, 
a class who possessed already commercial relations from time immemorial 
with distant countries. The first barrel makers were smiths and the 
first stock makers were carpenters. Subsequently the latter (" faiseurs 
de bois d'arquebuse ") seem to have become one of the thirty-two recog- 
nised guilds of the city, but gunsmiths (" garnisseurs de cannons ") re- 
mained a sub-denomination of the smiths (" bon metier des febves "), 
governed by special very stringent laws. 
The first regulation of this trade now extant dates from the year 
1672, when the Prince Bishop Maximilian Henry ordered that the muni- 
cipality of Liege should provide a suitable place for the proof of fire- 
arms, where dealers should be obliged to bring all gun-barrels, whether 
imported or forged in the city, together with the powder and bullets 
necessary for their proof ; the barrels were to be loaded by a sworn 
prover with a bullet of their calibre and a charge of powder equal to the 
weight of the ball, and then if found good, stamped with the arms of the 
city. Garnishers, stockers, and dealers were forbidden to work, sell, or 
export any barrel not thus stamped. All infractions of this ordinance 
were to be visited with a fine of a gold florin ; a forgery of the city mark 
with a fine of 100 florins. Two further ordinances issued in 1700 
