“The 26th Chapter doth declare how for to keep a haven, or river, on the sea coast, for to sink a ship, as well by night as by day in all points.”
On the subject of levelling great guns, Fludd’s “Historia Macrosmi,” 1618, would afford abundant suggestions, with three copper-plate engravings, showing the operation of using the quadrant.
9.
An Engine, portable in ones Pocket, which may be carried and fastened on the inside[4] of the greatest Ship, Tanquam aliud agens, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either of day or night, it shall irrecoverably sink that Ship.
Footnote
[4]the side.
[A Ship-destroying Engine.] In 1578, William Bourne, in his “Inventions or Devices,” had in the 17th article, suggested, “How for to sink a ship that hath laid you aboard, without shooting of ordnance.”
And again in his “Arte of shooting in great ordnaunce,” published in 1587, the 56th Chapter, suggests a mode “to sink a ship.”
The whole passage in the “Century” is abundantly obscure. The smallness of the Engine suggests some explosive missile, connected with clock-work, as the only means to insure its being compact and operating on a precise day at a stated point of time. But his inventive faculty once stimulated, even by the notices of Bourne, would speedily lead him to many ingenious contrivances.
10.