ARTILLERY; 
that Tome have written, that a month or two before a like 
experiment had been made at Bergen-op-Zoom, by an 
Italian deferter from the Spanifli troops, who had engaged 
with the Dutch, and had promifed to make them fome 
hollow balls of (tone, or iron, which being thrown into a 
befieged town, and hurtling after their fall, would fet eve¬ 
ry thing on fire ; but, as he was preparing his compolition, 
a fpark having fallen on the powder, he was blown up, 
and by his death left his employers in an uncertainty, whe¬ 
ther or not his fecret would fucceed. From both thefe 
defcriptions it is evident the end propofed was to burn the 
towns by means of thefe fire-balls. The effect of the bomb 
is chiefly confined to beating down buildings by its fall, or, 
by its explolion and the pieces of broken iron thrown about 
in all directions, to break and detlroy every thing around 
it. Valturinus, who is the oldeft of the modern writers 
on war, the fir ft edition of whole book was publiflied in 
Latin, at Bafle, in 1472, carries the invention of bombs at 
lead a century farther back than Strada; for in book x. 
p.267, of his work, there is the figure of a cannon, of 
the howitzer kind, deftined to throw a brazen ball, filled 
with combuttibles, or powder. Bombs fince their firft in¬ 
vention have been much improved, and they are now made 
of caft iron, thickeft at the part oppofite the vent; by which 
means, that fide being heavieft, they fall with the fufe up- 
permoft, and thereby prevent its being broken or fmother- 
ed : though fome engineers think that when caft equal they 
fly truer, and burft into more pieces. Blondel points out 
an extraordinary method of throwing (tones into a befie¬ 
ged town without making life of a mortar. “ The Poles 
(fays he) aflifted by fome auxiliary troops befieged the 
town of Thorne in Prufiia, held by the Swedes, into which 
they frequently threw (tones of a monftrous fize, great 
quarters of mill-ftones, and fquared (tones of more than 
8oolbs. weight, without making ufe of mortars, but by 
the following eafy method: In the firm ground, near the 
counterfcarp, they digged holes juft of the fize and figure 
of the (tone they intended to throw, the bottom of which 
hole being flat and even was turned towards the town, 
with fuch an angle of inclination as they judged by eftima- 
tion was proper for the direction of their throw, and in 
the middle of this bottom they digged another hole deeper 
and in form of a chamber, and in fuch fort, that the axis 
of the laft hole palling through the centre of gravity of 
the (tone, was perpendicular to its bed, and was the fame 
as the line of direction ; they filled this hole with gun¬ 
powder, if the earth was fufficiently firm, or elfe they put 
in a petard of a fize proportioned to the weight of the 
(tone, which refting upon the plane of the madrier of the 
petard, or of the tompion of the chamber, received the 
full force of the powder, which was lighted by means of 
a thread dipped in brandy, and compolition of artificial 
fire-works, and, rifing to a great height in the air, fell in 
the town at the deftined place, where it cruflied every 
thing it met with in its fall.” 
After the invention of bombs, thofe of carcaffes of dif¬ 
ferent kinds, and grenades, naturally followed : the latter 
are faid to have been firft uled in 1594. Of this kind is 
the curious invention called partridges, reprefented at 
Jg. 1, of the annexed Plate. Thefe were thrown from a 
mortar fo conftruCted, that its central bore would contain 
a bomb or carcafs of very large calibre; and being fur- 
rounded with a number of (mail bores, of a fize capable 
of containing a hand-grenade in each, the whole were fired 
at once, and flew together like a covey of partridges ; and 
hence the name. A 1 'eCtion of the bore of this lpecies of 
mortar is alfo given in the Plate. The howitzer, wljich 
is a kind of mortar mounted like a gun on a field-carriage, 
its trunnions being fixed in the middle, is on particular 
occalions extremely ferviceable; they were invented by 
the Germans about the year 1594, and were fometimes 
ufed to throw red-hot balls. 
The petard was a contrivance made ufe of to burft open 
gates, draw-bridges, and doors of arfenals, fortreffes, and 
cattles, attacked by furprile. It is a kind of iron mortar, 
Vol. II. No. 68. 
of the form of a truncated cone, or of a bell, with a touch- 
hole in the centre of the breech, and four handles for ratt¬ 
ening it to its madrier. Petards were of different iizes, ac¬ 
cording to the ufes for which they were deligned ; a (mall 
one, lixteen lines thick at the breech and eight or nine at 
the mouth, its calibre five inches at the breech and eight 
at the mouth, and its length from ten inches to a foot long, 
weighed about (ixty pounds, and was the heft fize for ge¬ 
neral ufe. The manner of loading it was this : it was 
filled nearly full with the heft gunpowder, and then co¬ 
vered with wadding, and afterwards by a wooden trencher 
exactly fixed to its calibre ; after this it was to be driven 
with (even or eight ftrokes of a wooden mallet, care being 
taken not to break the grains of the powder, and the re¬ 
mainder of the petard was filled with yellow wax, or 
Greek pitch, the whole covered over with a waxed cloth ; 
the mouth, of it was then placed in a cavity turned to re¬ 
ceive it, in a ftrong plank about eighteen inches fquare, 
called a madrier, (Lengthened on the oppofite fide with a 
crofs band of iron, and a ftrong iron hook ; to this madrier 
the petard was fattened by ftaples palling through the han¬ 
dles before-mentioned. When it was to be tiled, the ma¬ 
drier was made fait by its hook, and by other contrivan¬ 
ces, to the gate intended to be blown open, and fire being 
fet to the fufe, which palled through its vent or touch- 
hole into the centre of the pow'der, the effeCt was gene¬ 
rally a frafture in the gate almoft equal to the fize of the 
madrier. In the Artillery-Plate III. are (hewn two figures 
of the petard, with the mode of applying them to the en¬ 
trance-gates of fortified places. Fig. 2, reprefents the 
mode of fixing a petard to a gate, where the bridge which 
crofted the folle, or moat, is drawn up ; the petard is placed 
upon the end of a ladder, which, having its other end fle- 
cured to the axle of a two-wheeled carriage, is let down 
the outer fide of the moat till the petard touches the gate ; 
the engineer then erodes upon the ladder, and having fixed 
the petard, and introduced a cord or thread foaked in fpi- 
rits of wine or brandy into the fufe, he returned with the 
other end down the ladder; which, with the carriage, be¬ 
ing now' removed, the thread was lighted, and, commu¬ 
nicating with the petard, let it off, fo as either to fracture 
or blow open the gate. Fig. 3, (hews the common method 
of fixing a petard to the gate of a fortification ; and Jg. 4, 
reprefents a machine of pointed javelins, or (pears, lo pla¬ 
ced, that an enemy (hould not (ally out at unawares upoa 
the befiegers ; a centinel is placed over it, v ith his match¬ 
lock and reft, to give the Cigna!, when necellary, to the 
main army. This machine was alfq ufed both before and 
after the introdufttion of modern artillery, to defend an 
avenue, or narrow pals. The petard, according to father 
Daniel, was invented in France, A. D. 2579, in which 
year it was ufed by Henry IV. of France, then only king 
of Navarre. In December 1641, Arundel cattle was ta¬ 
ken by the parliamentary forces under Sir William Waller 
and colonel Browne, who coming unexpectedly, and find¬ 
ing the cattle gate (hut, they blew it open with a petard. 
The internals were a kind of floating mines, adapted t® 
the fea-fervice, conftruCted in the hulks of (hips or boats. 
The firft inventor of them, or at lead the firft who put 
them in practice, was Frederic Jambelli, an Italian engi¬ 
neer, at tlie liege of Antwerp by the Spaniards under Alex¬ 
ander prince of Parma, in 1585 ; a very particular and in. 
terefting relation of their deftruCtive effect is given by 
Strada, in his Hiftory of the Belgic War. The devaft v- 
tion made by thefe caufed feveral others to be tried, but 
none of them fucceeded fo well. At Dunkirk and St. 
Maloes they were tried by the Englifh; at Havre-de* 
Grace by the Englifh and Dutch, under king Williams 
and one was conftruCted by the French to be lent againlt 
Algiers, in 1688, but it was not made ufe of. In St. Re- 
mi’s Memoirs of Artillery there is a feCtion and view of 
the infernal ufed by the Dutch and Englifh at St. Maloesj 
an elevation and feCtion of which is giveain the preceding 
Plate, Jg. 5 and 6, deferibed by the follow ing references, 
which are applied to'both figures: A, the flection or pro- 
3 O &ic 
