Weight Weight Weight Point Length Bore of of of Blank Random in Cannon Shot Powder Range Feet
ins. lb. lb. lb. paces paces Cannon Royal or Double Cannon 8½ 8000 66 30 800 1930 M.L. 12 Cannon or Whole Cannon 8 6000 60 27 770 2000 " 11 Cannon Serpentine 7 5500 53½ 25 200 2000 " 10 Bastard Cannon 7 4500 41½ 20 180 1800 " 10 Demi-Cannon 6½-7 4000 33½ 18 170 1700 " 10 Cannon Petro or Cannon Perier 6 4000 24½ 14 160 1600 " 4 Culverin 5-5½ 4500 17½ 12 200 2500 " 13 Basilisk 5 4000 15 10 230 3000 " 4 Demi-Culverin 4 3400 9½ 8 200 2500 " 11 Bastard Culverin 4 3000 7 5¾ 170 1700 " 11 Saker 3½ 1400 5½ 5½ 170 1700 " 9 or 10 Minion 3½ 1000 4 4 170 1700 " 8 Falcon 2½ 660 3 3 150 1500 " 7 Falconet 2 500 1½ 1¼ 150 1500 " 6½ Serpentine 1½ 400 ¾ ¾ 140 1400 " 4½ Rabinet 1 300 ½ ½ 120 1000 " 2½
To these may be added bases, port pieces, stock fowlers, slings, half slings, and three-quarter slings, breech-loading guns ranging from five and a half to one-inch bore.
Other firearms in use in our ships at sea were the matchlock musket, firing a heavy double bullet, and the harquabuse[21] or arquebus, which fired a single bullet. The musket was a heavy weapon, and needed a rest, a forked staff, to support the barrel while the soldier aimed. This staff the musketeer lashed to his wrist, with a cord, so that he might drag it after him from place to place. The musket was fired with a match, which the soldier lit from a cumbrous pocket fire-carrier. The harquabuse was a lighter gun, which was fired without a rest, either by a wheel-lock (in which a cog-wheel, running on pyrites, caused sparks to ignite the powder), or by the match and touch-hole. Hand firearms were then common enough, and came to us from Italy, shortly after 1540. They were called Daggs. They were wheel-locks, wild in firing, short, heavy, and beautifully wrought. Sometimes they carried more than one barrel, and in some cases they were made revolving. They were most useful in a hand-to-hand encounter, as with footpads, or boarders; but they were useless at more than ten paces. A variation from them was the hand-cannon or blunderbuss, with a bell-muzzle, which threw rough slugs or nails. In Elizabethan ships the musketeers sometimes fired short, heavy, long-headed, pointed iron arrows from their muskets, a missile which flew very straight, and penetrated good steel armour. They had also an infinity of subtle fireworks, granadoes and the like, with which to set their opponents on fire. These they fired from the bombard pieces, or threw from the tops, or cage-works. Crossbows and longbows went to sea, with good store of Spanish bolts and arrows, until the end of Elizabeth's reign, though they were, perhaps, little used after 1590. The gunner had charge of them, and as, in a way, the gunner was a sort of second captain, sometimes taking command of the ship, we cannot do better than to quote from certain old books concerning his duties on board. Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, has left a curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance," first published in London, in 1587, the year before the Armada. Its author, W. Bourne, was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend. The art of shooting in great guns did not improve very much during the century following; nor did the guns change materially. The breech-loading, quick-firing guns fell out of use as the musket became more handy; but otherwise the province of the gunner changed hardly at all. It is not too much to say that gunners of Nelson's time, might have studied some of Bourne's book with profit.