THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
127 
THE MOBILITY OF FIELD ARTILLERY; 
PAST AND PRESENT. 
BY LIEUT. H. W. L. HIME, R.A. 
[No. II.] 
“ La qualifce distinctive de l’artillerie de campagne (est) la mobilite .”—The JEjnperor Napoleon, III . 
Shortly before the close of the Thirty Years* War, the Great Rebellion 
broke oat, and field artillery made its appearance for the first time on English 
ground. The guns, although ponderous, were not powerful; the carriages, 
although massive, were not strong; the ammunition was in fit keeping with 
the guns and carriages; and an army pursued its tedious march, encumbered 
with a train of artillery 
“ 'That, like a wounded snake, dragged its slow length along.’* 
Between the Restoration and the expulsion of James II., the artillery 
appears to have been entirely withdrawn from the public gaze; for when 
William of Orange landed in England, “ the apparatus which he brought 
with him, though such as had long been in constant use on the con¬ 
tinent, excited in our ancestors an admiration resembling that which the 
Indians of America felt for the Castilian harquebusses." 1 Before the 
invasion, some attention had been undoubtedly paid to the artillery by 
Charles II. ; 2 but whatever improvements the king introduced were confined 
to the fire of the guns—for as far as related to their mobility, they were in 
much the same state as the guns of the previous century. As late as the 
battle of Sedgemoor, 1685, the last battle fought on English soil, the horses 
and harness provided for the transport of the artillery were so bad, that the 
field pieces intended to act against the rebels were only dragged to the spot 
where the fight was raging by coach-horses and traces belonging to the 
Bishop of W inchester. 3 
The artillery which accompanied the invading army of the Prince of Orange 
was almost as cumbrous and slow as that which it was intended to oppose. 
When the Prince's force of ordnance arrived, it was found to consist of 
1 Lord Macaulay’s “Hist, of England}” Yol. I. p. 317. 
2 Dry den’s “ Annus Mirabilis.” 
3 Lord Macaulay’s “ Hist, of England,” Yol. II. p. 189. 
] 7 
[yol. VII.] 
