290 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
posture and grace as lie can possible, for the agility and comely carriage of 
a man in handling his Ladle, & Spunge, and lading his Peece is such an 
outward action as doth give great content to the standers by . . . and 
take heed you shame not yourself in bringing some powder out again with 
the ladle, which is imputed a great shame to a gunner.” 
The foregoing passage and some words of command preserved in Eldred 
prove that the rudiments of drill, however rude and cumbrous, were already 
in existence. To load a gun 13 words of command were required:— 
1. Put back your Peece. 
2. Order your Peece to load. 
3. Search your Peece. 
4. Sponge your Peece. 
5; Pill your Ladle. 
6. Put in your Powder. 
7. Empty your Ladle. 
8. Put up your powder. 
9. Thrust home your wad. 
10. Kegard your shot. 
11. Put home your shot gently. 
12. Thrust home your last wad 
with three strokes. 
13. Gage your Peece. 
The rate of firing is given at 8 shots an hour in all the old books I have 
seen. “ One may well make 10 shots an hour, if the peeces be well forti- 
fyed and strong; but if they be but ordinary peeces, then 8 is enough, 
always provided that after 40 shots you refresh and code the peece, and let 
her rest an lioure, for fear lest 80 shots shall break the peece, being not 
able to endure the force and heat.”—-Eldred, p. 165. 
Norton gives the following note on the penetration of round shot: “A 
cannon at 120 paces ” (200 yds. if geometrical paces), “ will pierce a wall 
or rampart meanely settled 15 or 16 foote, and being well settled onely 
10 or 12 foote, but in close sandy ground 20 or 24 foote deeper.”—p. 136. 
The following range tables are from Eldred 
Gun. 
Elevation. 
P.B. j 1° j 
2° 
3° 1 4° 
5° 
6° 
7° 
8° 
9° 1 10° 
j Whole Culvering . 
| Demy Culvering ......... 
; Baker . 
i Falcon .. 
yds. 
460 
400 
360 
320 
yds. | 
630 i 
600 
660 
480 
yds. 
900 
1 800 
! 720 
j 640 
yds. yds. 
11201330 
100011200 
910jl090 
800 960 
yds. 
i460 
1400 
1270 
1120 
yds. 
i770 
1600 
1450 
|1280 
yds. 
1990 
1800 
1630 
1440 
yds. 
2120 
2000 
Sisio 
1620 
yds. 
2430 
2200 
1990 
1760 
yds. 
2650 
2400 
2170 
1920 
I have not given any of Norton's ranges, as they are avowedly taken 
from a foreign work by Alexander Bianco, and most probably were quite 
unsuited for British ordnance. Eldred lays great and just stress on the 
importance of good range tables, and he seems to have taken great pains 
in making his own. He was for 60 years a gunner, during the reigns of 
Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles L, and as he kept a register (pp. 52 
and 57) of all the practice he carried on during the greater part of this long 
series of years, he no doubt “ set forth truer tables than he did ever see.” 
“I made me a book wherein I did write down all my shot that I bad 
