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It is as follows :— 
“ Saclient tons que je Guillanme du Moulin de Bouloigne, ai eu et receu de 
Thomas Eouques, garde du clos des galees du Eoy nostre sire a Rouen, un pot d© 
fer a traire garros a feu, quarante-huit garros ferres et empanes en deux cassez, 
une livre de salpetre et demie livre de souffre vif pour fare poudre pour traire les 
diz garros; desquelles clioses je me tien a bien paie, et les promets a rendre an 
roy nostre sire ou a son commandement, toute fois que mestier sera. Donne a Leure 
sous mon seel, le n e jour de juillet Tan mil ccc trente et huh.” 
This proves that there existed in the marine arsenal at Rouen in the year 
1338, an iron fire-arm, which was provided with forty-eight bolts (carreaux), 
made of iron and feathered; also one pound of saltpetre and half a pound of 
sulphur to make powder to propel the said arrows : these two ingredients 
being unmixed. 
It may also be fairly assumed that the instrument from which these 
projectiles were to be fired had no special name, or if it had, that such 
name was so uncommon as to be unknown to this William; for otherwise, 
in a receipt of this formal nature, that name would have been specified, and 
the cannon would not have been merely called an iron pot. 1 
The bolts, garros or carreaux, which were the projectiles, were similar to 
those used for cross-bows and other engines before the invention of powder. 
The only known figured example of the cannon arrow, is of a date much 
later, in a work of the 15th century; but as the arrow there depicted so 
exactly corresponds with the description we have in the text above related, 
and with more minute details which we shall meet with further on, it may 
be here engraved. 
■ Fig . 1. 
British Museum, Add. MS. 24,945. fol. 94. 
The word “ carreau 33 is evidently derived from carre (square); the head 
of the bolt being frequently pyramidal, or square terminating in a 
point. 
The arrows for this piece cannot have been large or heavy, as a pound of 
saltpetre and half a pound of sulphur was the quantity apportioned for 48 
arrows. These ingredients, when mixed with charcoal, would not have made 
more than two pounds of gunpowder. This allows about seven-tenths of an 
ounce for each charge. Now supposing that the projectile was even ten 
times as heavy as the charge of powder, (and, with such powder, it would 
have thus received but a feeble impulse), the arrow would only have weighed 
about seven ounces. 
Here we must note the fact that the ingredients of the powder were kept 
separately; being probably mixed when required for use. 
In the same year dates a document now unfortunately not forthcoming, 
but which we cannot doubt was known by Ducange to exist in the Chambre 
1 Etudes sur le passe et l’avenir de l’artillerie, par L.N. Bonaparte, tom iii. p. 73. 
