But it was seldom that any ordnance greater than a demi-cannon was used on board ship.
The guns were made of brass or iron, and were mounted on wooden carriages which had four wheels. They could be run in and out by means of tackles. In his interesting little book, “The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance,” by William Bourne, published in 1587, the author significantly speaks of “this barbarous and rude thing called the Art of Shooting in great Ordnaunce.” This was the period, you will remember, when arrows, bills, and pikes had not yet lost their admirers. He tells you in his preface that he has written this book because “we English men haue not beene counted but of late daies to become good Gunners, and the principall point that hath caused English men to be counted good Gunners hath been for that they are hardie or without fear about their ordnaunce: but for the knowledg in it other nations and countries haue tasted better therof, as the Italians, French, and Spaniardes, for that the English men haue had but little instruction but that they haue learned of the Doutchmen, or Flemings in the time of King Henry the eight.”
Waist, Quarter-deck, and Poop of the “Revenge.”
(Elizabethan period.)
Sixteenth-Century Three-Masted Ship.
By a Contemporary Artist. The date on the stern is 1564. Notice the man in the maintop dowsing maintopsail.
He goes into the subject with great thoroughness and points out that allowance must be made for the wind, and how to secure good aim. The cannon are to be placed so as to be right in the middle of the ports of the ship, and care is to be taken that the wheels of the gun-carriage are not made too high. He advises that when shooting from one ship at another, if there is any sea on it is essential to have a good helmsman “that can stirre steadie.” The best time to fire at the other vessel is when the latter is “alofte on the toppe of the sea,” for then “you have a bigger marke than when she is in the trough.” If the ship rolls, “then the best place of the ship for to make a shotte is out of the head or sterne.” The shorter ordnance is to be placed at the side of the ship because they are lighter, and if the ship should heave “wyth the bearyng of a Sayle that you must shutte the portes,” then you can easily take the guns in.
“In lyke manner,” he proceeds, “the shorter that the peece lyeth oute of the shyppes syde, the lesse it shall annoy them in the tacklyng of the Shippes Sayles, for if that the piece doe lye verye farre oute of the Shyppes syde, then the Sheetes and Tackes, or the Bolynes wyll alwayes bee foule of the Ordnaunce, whereby it maye muche annoy them in foule weather.” Therefore the long guns are best placed so that they are fired from the stern. But a gun so placed must be “verye farre oute of the porte, or else in the shooting it may blowe up the Counter of the Shyppes sterne.”