THE BROME-WALTON FAMILY. 
29 
with the African and Carthagenian)—preceded the monster bombs in 
Europe. The former were thrown by hand since the days of Gideon's 
“fire-pots, with torches (fuzes) within the pots" [Judges, vii. 16), until 
by Royal Warrant, 13th July, 1678, Charles II. granted an annuity of 
£20 to John Finker for having “ invented " a new way of shooting 
hand grenadoes out of small mortars ; but the larger were projected 
from gunnes and mortars by horizontal and vertical fire, indifferently. 1 
Oculists tell us that the citizens of London are becoming congenitally 
near-sighted by reason of the optic nerves being ever focussed to the 
length of the narrow streets in the contracted horizon of their vision : 
even so, is not it hazardous for the modern bombardier to strain at a lon¬ 
ger historical focus than that acquired in boyhood when “ taught to 
believe " that gunpowder was invented by Friar Bacon, and that cannon 
were first employed at Cre<?y ? 
It would be profitless to pursue this subject further; and to prolong 
this prelude would but serve tourner autour du pots. The Bombs with 
which we are now to be more immediately concerned are not the pro¬ 
jectiles, but the floating batteries from which these were projected in 
naval operations against ships and forts, termed indifferently The 
Bombs, Bomb Vessels or Ketches, Tenders, Fire-Ships, and Galleys. 
Naval histories and Ordnance records have not yielded any appreci¬ 
able light upon Bomb-ships —not because data do not exist, but because 
the special subject has not been searched out. Nine lives would not 
suffice to repair the gaps in Naval and Military histories; and there is 
neither a Navy nor Army record office. The Committee over which 
Lord Airey presided, on army reform, recommended the establishment 
of an army record office, but not in a way to commend itself to the civil 
side of the War Office. 
In July last, under presidency of the Marquis of Lothian, was held 
the first general meeting of the members of a voluntary association 
styled The Navy Records Society ; and their first resolution was that 
. . . . “there is no history of the Navy worthy of the name." 2 
A similar resolution would have to be framed by an Army Records 
Society ? Of all the Naval treatises consulted for purposes of these 
“ Memoirs," not one is worth much more than the value of waste paper, 
except James's (which is the work of a “ sixth rate"); and on the 
writer's applying at the Admiralty for information concerning Bomb- 
ships, he was politely directed, by letter of 20th September last, to 
make search for himself at the Rolls House, Chancery Lane ! The 
fact is, that until the present century the composition of war-ships 
was half Naval, half Military; and in particular epochs the records 
of services on sea and land are consequently interdependent and inter¬ 
lace. Both require a conjoint Army and Navy Records Society —which 
1 Capt.-Quartermaster Hexham’s “Art of Artillery in the United Provinces,” 1641 ed., p. 28. 
“Artifices, De feu” (1603 ed), p. 158. “Art of Gunnery” (1670), by Master-Gunner Nye. 
“ Pyrotechnia ” (1636), by Gunner Jno. Babbington. For opportunity of reading these curious 
works on bombs, fuzes, shrajpnel, and mortars, &c., I am under much obligation to the Director 
of Artillery’s Department. The Archimedean combined sphere-and-triangle is a prominent feature 
in these works. Although first fruits of the printing press in England, these are but modem 
authorities, for the weapons are infinitely in advance of the writers. I have also to acknowledge 
help from the Intelligence Department of the War Office.— R.JET.M. 
2 Army and Navy Gazette , 8th July, 1893, p. 569. 
