THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
293 
conditions. Norton had some vague notion of this truth, and he declares 
that “a gunner ought to have an entire and perfect knowledge of the 
condition and quality of his Peece, by experience made by former practises 
in her,” p. 110. But that the guns were capable individually of making 
fair practice can scarcely be doubted. “ To fayle at the first shot,” says 
the same writer, “ if the gunner be not acquainted with the Peece and 
Mark, is passable; and at the second to fayle is pardonable; but to fayle of 
a fair sliott at the third time is too much, and argues but little judgment 
and discretion in such a gunner.” 
A breaching battery was supposed to consist of 18 guns, — 8 cannon, 
6 culvering, and 4 demy-culvering. “ The cannon playing at right angles 
(to the wall) are to batter and shake it by reason of the waight of their 
shot; the culverings play traversely and cut out that which the cannons 
have battered; and the demy-culverings to play upon the flankers and 
defences, as also to hinder the sallyes of the besieged, and discover and 
dismount their Ordnance. The distance that a battery for either should be 
made ought not to be above 120 paces* * * § (200 yds.), or 150 at the most, or 
at 80 or 90 (130 to 150 yds.) if possible; the lesse the better, yea though 
it were at the edge of the Dyke; for the nearer they are, the greater are 
their forces.”—Norton, p. 136. It is extremely doubtful whether these 
directions, excellent as they are, were ever attended to practically. If we 
may credit Lord Clarendon, 1000 “ great shot” were spent upon the 
walls of Donnington Castle, “ without any other damage to the garrison 
than the beating down some old parts thereof.”! It required some 500 
rounds to make a practicable breach in the walls of Basing House, 1645 ; 
and “two reasonable good breaches”! in the church tower of Tredah, in 
Ireland, were only made after 200 to 300 rounds had been fired by 
Cromwell's guns. The breaching batteries in these cases must surely have 
been established at a long range. Yet on the other hand the batteries 
which failed to reduce Latham House were established at 200, 100 and 
60 yds.§ 
The proper draught for a horse was generally allowed to be about 
500 lbs. — the weight drawn by a Horse Artillery horse at the present 
time, exclusive of the driver and his kit. An ox was. considered to be 
capable of 600 lbs. draught. Twenty-three horses, “ at least,” were required 
for a cannon on good ground; 15 or 17 for the demy-cannon; and 9 for a 
culvering. These were harnessed “to go double as they do in coaches.”|| 
The knowledge of theoretical gunnery possessed by the very best gunners 
of the time was singularly erroneous and defective, and their conception of 
the nature of the trajectory, two right lines, the motus violentus and motns 
* Geometrical paces. 
f “History of the Great Rebellion,” p. 541. 
J Carlyle’s “ Letters, &c. of Cromwell,” Yol. II. p. 60. 
§ “Journal of Siege of Lathom House,” by Capt. E. Ilalsall; in Appendix to “Memoirs of 
Col. Hutchinson,” by Mrs Lucy Hutchinson. Bohn’s series. 
|j Old pictures show a driver mounted on every alternate pair of horses. A 24-pr. gun was 
taken at Naseby, drawn by 26 horses, and guns drawn by 24 horses are mentioned in Rupert’s 
correspondence. 
