THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
253 
The gunner that fires, although he hears the word “ fire" from the man who 
rams, is yet not to put the portfire to the vent but by order of the officer 
or non-commissioned officer who is at the gun. 
In quick firing practice, the gun is to be sponged between every firing 
except now and then; by order of the commanding officer a few rounds may 
be fired without sponging, to practise the men for a time of action when 
this may become necessary. 
The officers will order sponging again by a word of command. 
Aug. lith. Major Williams will order a practice with a medium 12-pr., a 
light 6-pr., a light 3-pr., an 8-in. howitzer, and two mortars at the 
battery, to begin to-morrow and continue all the week, morning and evening. 
As it is possible this will be the only practice before the companies 
separate, it is to be carried on with great attention, and to be practice for 
service and not experiment; and it is intended to make the officers and men 
perfect in the use and ready managing the artillery in the field. In the 
course of the week an experiment will be made to fire royal shells from 
24-pr. guns. The mortars are to be fired at small ranges, and each day a 
fixed quantity of powder, by which, from the different ranges may be formed, 
a mean range of each day's practice. 
The latter part of the week.will be firing of grape shot. 
Note. —We find above one of the earliest public allusions to that horizontal 
shell firing which is now developed to such destructive proportions. August 
11th, 1776.—“In the course of the week an experiment will be made to fire 
royal shells from 24-pr. guns." The first suggestion for the employment of 
shells in this w r ay is commonly attributed on the authority of Drink water to 
Captain Mercier of the 39th regiment, in the defence of Gibraltar in 1782; 
it is satisfactory to claim priority for an artilleryman; but a much earlier 
date than either of those may in fact be assigned to the proposal. In 1709 
M. de Grignan wrote from Marseille to the Trench Minister of War “that a 
young Italian named Piret had proposed to throw a hollow projectile from a 
cannon horizontally with a fuze which should ignite by the fire of the piece, 
and that this hollow projectile submitted to trial by M. d'Albert, Lieutenant of 
Artillery, had succeeded well the second attempt."—(Paixhans). There is an 
interesting proof that this subject was brought to the notice of Lord Nelson. 
“ In looking over a bundle of old papers that once belonged to Lord Nelson," 
writes Mr John Wilson Croker to Sir George Murray, “ I found the enclosed 
plan for firing shells from cannon, I believe the idea has been since carried 
much further, and that the plan is of no value now-a-days, but nevertheless, 
I think it may as well be placed in your archives at the Ordnance office. It 
was found in a bundle of papers of dates prior to 1801." The paper in 
question was forwarded by Sir George Murray to the office of the Ordnance 
Select Committee, 1 May, 1845, and is there preserved. It contains the 
particulars of experiments made at the Military School of Auxonne, in 1784 
—1786, with 8-in. shells fired from a bronze cannon with various charges, at 
angles of about 40°; if our great naval hero ever seriously thought of 
augmenting the power of his broadsides, it can scarcely have failed to occur 
to him, that what could be fired from cannon at 40° could be fired at lower 
angles, nevertheless the world waited twenty years longer before the idea 
forced its way to attention, and became the basis of new tactics in artillery. 
