595 
WHO INVENTED THE LEATHER GUNS? 
BY 
LIEUT.-COLONEL H. W. L. HIME, late R.A. 
FOUR claimants to the invention of the Leather Guns have been 
brought forward at one time or another :—Gustavus Adolphus, Colonel 
James Wemyss, Melchior Freiherr von Wurmbrandt, and Colonel 
Robert Scott. 
The claim made on behalf of the King of Sweden, by the Rev. Dr. 
Walter Harte, 1 may be at once put aside as baseless. So busy a prince 
had no time for the construction of pieces of Artillery. Clear and 
convincing proofs would be necessary to establish such a claim, and 
Dr. Harte has given us no proofs whatever. Two writers whom he 
quotes give it no real support. Porno merely speaks of the guns (at 
Leipsig) as a late invention ,—“ cannone d’invenzione nova &c.” 2 ; and 
Lotich confines himself to an ambiguous assertion,—“cujus (the king’s) 
industria inventa tormenta bellica, minoris generis, et fere portabilia 
&c.” 3 No one will lay the slightest weight on these vague and dubious 
statements. The king adopted the guns, but he did not invent them. 
Colonel Dodge, of the American army, tells us that the king “him¬ 
self contrived” 3 and 4-pr. shortened guns in 1625 4 ; but as he has 
cited no authorities (except generally, in his preface), it is impossible 
to discuss a statement which is apparently due to some oversight or 
misapprehension. Fryxell, it is true, speaks of these iron guns as 
“the King’s second invention” 5 ; but his meaning is sufficiently plain. 
He is speaking of the King’s adoption of a second invention made 
about that time. It matters little, however, whether this explanation 
be correct or not. The highly improbable proposition that Gustavus 
invented any gun, is not, and cannot be established by the bare asser¬ 
tion of anybody. The invention in question was almost certainly due 
to Colonel Hans Henrik von Siegeroth, who discovered experimental¬ 
ly, in 1624, that the existing iron field guns could be considerably 
shortened without diminishing their shooting power. 6 
1 Hist, of Gust. Adolphus, London, 1807; I, 156; II, 42, n. 
2 De’Saggi d’Historia, Venice, 1640; p. 33. 
3 Lotichii Rerum German. Sfc.f Frankfurt, 1646: Part I, vol. 2, p. 782. 
4 Gustavus Adolphus, Boston, U.S., 1890; p. 43. 
5 Gustaf Adolfs andra uppfinning; “ G-ustaf II Adolf,” Stockholm, 1894; p. 152. 
6 JBiog. Lexicon, Orebro, 1855; art. ‘Wurmbrandt’. 
12. VOL. XXV. 
