ARTILLERY. 
234 
file of the machine; B, bottom of the veflTel filled with 
fund; C, lower deck filled with 20,ooolbs. of powder, 
with a covering of mafonry a foot thick; D, fecond deck 
furnifhed with 600 bombs and carcatfes, having two feet 
of mafonry over it; E, third deck above the gaillard, fur- 
nithed with fifty barrels, hooped with iron, filled full of 
all forts of fire-works; F, the canal or tube for conduct¬ 
ing the fire to the powder, and to the priming; G, iron 
inltrumeats, fifty in number, filled with combudibles, and 
armed with points, whereby they would, if they fell on 
wood or any foft fubflance, flick fall to it. The machine 
or veil'd was thirty-four feet in length, eighteen in height, 
and drew nine feet water ; the upper deck was covered with 
old iron cannon and langridge ; it broke a great number of 
windows, unroofed many houfes, and produced a very un- 
ttfual feene of devadation. 
At what period cannon were firfl ufed in Europe is not 
clearly afeertained ; if we may credit John Barbour, arch¬ 
deacon of Aberdeen, king Edward III. had artillery in his 
fird campaign againd the Scots, A.D. 1327; thefe the 
-archdeacon calls crakys of war. Father Daniel does not 
carry his claim in behalf of the French fo high by fame 
years, as he only cites a record preferved in the chamber 
of accounts at Paris, to prove that the French had ufed 
cannon in the year 1338. Vilani, an Italian author, fays, 
the Englifh had cannon at the battle of Creffy, in 1346; 
this however is not mentioned by Froiffart, or any other of 
the many hidorians who have deferibed that battle. Lu- 
gi Collado dates the introduction of cannon to have taken 
place in 1366 ; and other authors fay, that cannon was firfl 
ufed by the Venetians againft the Genoefe, in 1378. Thefe 
.machines, when firfl invented, were rather mortars than 
cannon, mod of them having chambers ; they were in ge¬ 
neral conftructed of iron bars, foldered or welded together, 
and drengthened with iron hoops; others were made of 
plates of iron rolled up and fortified with hoops of the 
fame metal. Of the fird kind there are leveral now re¬ 
maining at Woolwich. Cannons, called alfo bombards, 
were at fird chiefly made of hammered iron, but in procefs 
of time many were cad of the compofition called bell or 
gun metal; they were alfo fometimes made of plates of 
iron and copper, with lead run between them. One of 
this fort of guns was taken up on the coad of Ireland by 
a fifherman, and is fuppofed to have belonged to the Spa- 
nidi armada. The ancient bombards were fometimes ve¬ 
ry large, and chiefly ufed for difeharging done balls of a 
monfirous fize. When Mahomet II. befieged Condanti- 
nople, anno 1453, he battered the walls with done bullets, 
and his pieces were forne of them of the calibre of i20olbs. 
but then they could not be fired more than four times a- 
day. In Rymer, there is an order from Henry V. to the 
clerk of the ordnance, and John Bonet, a mafonof Maid- 
done, to cut 7000 done fliot in the quarries there. Froif- 
fart deferibes a very extraordinary bombard, ufed at the 
Jiege of Oudenarde, made by the people of Ghent under 
the direction of d’Arteville; “ therefore (fays he), to ter¬ 
rify the garrifon of Oudenarde, he caufed to be made a 
marvellous great bombard, which was fifty feet long, and 
threw dones of a wonderful bignefs; when this bombard 
was difeharged, it might be heard five leagues by day, and 
Sen at night, fo great was the noife of its explollon.” 
Although modern artillery feems to have been ufed as 
early as the time of Edward III. yet none of our workmen 
ever attempted to cad them till the reign of Henry VIII. 
when, in 1521, according to Stowe, or 1535 as Camden fays, 
great brals ordnance, as cannon and culverins, were fird 
call in England, by one John Owen. Whether this man 
did not fucceed, or died before the year 1543, is not men¬ 
tioned ; but, in that year, according to Stowe, the kingem- 
ployed two aliens as his gunfounders; his words are, “the 
king minding wars with France made great preparations 
and provilion, as well of munitions and artillery, as alfo of 
brals ordnance; amongd which, at that time, one Peter 
Bawd, a F'renchman born, a gun-founder or maker of gre.it 
ordnance, and one other alien called Peter Van Collen, a 
gunfmith, both the king’s freedmen, conferred together} 
devifed, and caufed to be made, certain mortar-pieces, be¬ 
ing, at the mouth, from eleven inches unto nineteen inches 
wide.” The duke of Burgundy alfo appears to have had 
fome very large ordnance in his army ; our countryman 
Coriat delcribes one that he faw in the arfenal at Zurich ; 
“among them I faw one palling great murdering-piece ; 
both ends thereof were fo exceeding wide, that a very cor¬ 
pulent man might eafilv enter the fame; this alfo w'as 
wonne in the field from the faid duke.” vol. ii. p. 193. 
He likewife mentions another large piece, termed a bafililk, 
which he faw in the arfenal of Milan ; “ alfo (fays he) I 
faw an exceeding huge balilifke, which was fo great, that 
it would eafily contayne the body of a very corpulent 
man.” About this time chambered pieces for throwing 
Hones, called cannon-perriers, port-pieces, flock-fow lers, 
fling-pieces, portingale-bafes, and murtherers, were much 
ufed in forts, and on fhip-board. 
From what has been ilated it will appear, that the con- 
drudlion and deflination of the original cannon were very 
various. In the Artillery-Plate IV. we have colleiled to¬ 
gether fpecimens of the moll curious and early pieces of 
ordnance, of which the following is an explanation : Fig. 1, 
is a very lingular fpecies of cannon, hooped, and made an¬ 
gular, and placed in an angular carriage; the purpofe of 
it w as to Ihootat very elevated objeds. Fig. 2, is another 
very curious gun, with its carriage, and method of railing 
or elevating it, fo as to bear upon the object of attack. 
Both of thefe are to be feen at Peel Town, in the Ille of 
Man. Fig. 3, is a cannon deferibed by colonel Vallency, 
as follows : “ the infide is a tube of copper foldered, and 
covered with a tube of plated or hammered iron ; and, as 
it could not be made to (hut clofeupon the copper, the in¬ 
terval is filled with melted lead. Over the iron tube is 
lead, then plated iron where necelfary, to fortify it from 
the trunnions to the breech, and over all flieathing copper, 
lapping over one another, as may be feen by the drawing. 
The trunnions are compofed of iron cylinders, half an inch 
diameter, covered with lead ; probably they were alfo co¬ 
vered with Iheet copper. I fend you fome pieces of the 
outfide copper, and of the lead coatings, but could not rip 
off a piece of the iron tube, which is about an eighth of 
an inch in thicknefs where I opened it, which was half way 
between the trunnions and the muzzle. I do not recolleft 
this condruflion of a cannon deferibed by any of our old 
authors. This gun, which is nearly a four-pounder, was 
taken up in Kinfale harbour, by fome fifhermen in their 
nets.” In the breech it has a chamber, where the load¬ 
ing was placed; and is very fimilar to the chambers in the 
prefent patent fowling-pieces. Fig. 4, is an original how¬ 
itzer, drawn and deferibed by Valturinus ; and fg„ 5 and 6, 
are the kind of fiery balls it was dedined to throw, which 
opened by means of hinges oppofite the vent, for the con¬ 
venience of introducing the combuftible matter. Fig.-j , 
is a reprefentation of a triple cannon, which was a piece 
confiding of three bores, by which three balls were dif¬ 
eharged at once. Fig. 8, ihews the twin cannon, very fimi¬ 
lar to a double-barrel gun, and by which two fliot were 
fired at once. Fig. 9, is a correfl view of one of the ce¬ 
lebrated culverines of Nancy, which is near twenty-four 
feet long. Fig. 10, is a reprefentation of that beautiful 
piece of bcafs ordnance, which was cad at Utrecht in 1544, 
and prefented to queen Elizabeth by the States of Holland : 
it meaftires twenty-four feet, and is placed on the fummit 
of the cliffs of Dover, in the front of the caflle. Fig. n, 
is a gun-cart, carrying two peteraros, or chambered pie¬ 
ces. Several of thefe carts were reprefented in a valuable 
picture of the fiege of Bullogne, which was burnt in the 
unfortunate fire at Cowdry-houfe, in 1793. Thefe carts 
feern to have been an invention of the Scots; and Henry, 
in his Hifiory of England, mentions them as peculiar to 
that nation. They appear to be the fame as thofe men¬ 
tioned by Munro, who, fpeaking of the invention of ar¬ 
tillery, fays, “and it is thought that the invention of can- 
