In achieving the important position obtained by the rifle in the present day, it has nevertheless effected no more than was predicted of it by Leutman, the Academician of St. Petersburg, in 1728, by Euler, Borda, and Gassendi, and by our eminent but hitherto forgotten countryman Robins, who in 1747, urgently called the attention of the Government and the public to the importance of this description of fire-arm as a military weapon.
In the War of American Independence, the rifle, there long established as the national arm for the chase, exhibited its superiority as a war arm also, in so sensible a manner, that we were constrained to oppose to the American hunters the subsidised Riflemen of Hesse, Hanover, and Denmark.
Robins’ prophecy.
We shall close by quoting the last words in “Robins’ Tracts of Gunnery.”
“Whatever State shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages of rifled barrel pieces, and having facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce into their armies their general use with a dexterity in the management of them; they will by this means acquire a superiority, which will almost equal anything that has been done at any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of arms; and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors of fire-arms.”
Note.—The preceding articles on the Rifle, Rifling, and Rifle Projectiles are mainly compiled from: “New Principles of Gunnery, by Robins,” “Scloppetaria,” “Remarks on National Defence, by Col. the Hon. A. Gordon,” “Dean’s Manual of Fire Arms,” “Rifle Ammunition, by Capt. A. Hawes,” “Rifles and Rifle Practice, by C. M. Wilcox,” “Papers on Mechanical Subjects, by Whitworth,” “The Rifle Musket, by Capt. Jarvis, Royal Artillery,” “Des Armes Rayees, by H. Mangeot,” “Cours Elementaire sur les Armes Portatives, by F. Gillion,” and “Cours sur les Armes a feu Portatives, by L. Panot.”