GUNS AND GUNNERS
Breech-loaders—Cartridges—Powder—The gunner's art
Cannon were in use in Europe, it is thought, in the eleventh century; for the art of making gunpowder came westward, from China, much earlier than people have supposed. It is certain that gunpowder was used "in missiles," before it was used to propel them. The earliest cannon were generally of forged iron built in strips secured by iron rings. They were loaded by movable chambers which fitted into the breech, and they were known as "crakys of war." We find them on English ships at the end of the fourteenth century, in two kinds, the one a cannon proper, the other an early version of the harquebus-a-croc. The cannon was a mere iron tube, of immense strength, bound with heavy iron rings. The rings were shrunken on to the tube in the ordinary way. The tube, when ready, was bolted down to a heavy squared beam of timber on the ship's deck. It was loaded by the insertion of the "gonne-chambre," an iron pan, containing the charge, which fitted into, and closed the breech. This gonne-chambre was wedged in firmly by a chock of elm wood beaten in with a mallet. Another block of wood, fixed in the deck behind it, kept it from flying out with any violence when the shot was fired. Cannon of this sort formed the main armament of ships until after the reign of Henry the Eighth. They fired stone cannon-balls, "pellettes of lead, and dyce of iron." Each gun had some half-dozen chambers, so that the firing from them may have been rapid, perhaps three rounds a minute. The powder was not kept loose in tubs, near the guns, but neatly folded in conical cartridges, made of canvas or paper (or flannel) which practice prevailed for many years. All ships of war carried "pycks for hewing stone-shott," though after 1490, "the iron shott callyd bowletts," and their leaden brothers, came into general use. The guns we have described, were generally two or four pounders, using from half-a-pound, to a pound and a quarter, of powder, at each discharge. The carriage, or bed, on which they lay, was usually fitted with wheels at the rear end only.
The other early sea-cannon, which we have mentioned, were also breech-loading. They were mounted on a sort of iron wheel, at the summit of a stout wooden staff, fixed in the deck, or in the rails of the poop and forecastle. They were of small size, and revolved in strong iron pivot rings, so that the man firing them might turn them in any direction he wished. They were of especial service in sweeping the waist, the open spar-deck, between the breaks of poop and forecastle, when boarders were on board. They threw "base and bar-shot to murder near at hand"; but their usual ball was of stone, and for this reason they were called petrieroes, and petrieroes-a-braga. The harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactly similar, threw small cross-bar shot "to cut Sails and Rigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in the tops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales of merchantmen.
In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the Mary Rose, of 500 tons, took part in the battle with the French, in St Helens Roads, off Brading. It was a sultry summer day, almost windless, when the action began, and the Mary Rose suffered much (being unable to stir) from the gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when a breeze sprang up, and the galleys drew off, the Mary Rose sent her men to dinner. Her lower ports, which were cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeled her over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sank in deep water, in a few moments, carrying with her her captain, and all the gay company on board. In 1836 some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kinds we have described, some of brass, some of iron. The iron guns had been painted red and black. Those of brass, in all probability, had been burnished, like so much gold. These relics may be seen by the curious, at Woolwich, in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they were presented by their salver.
In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive, for a great advance took place directly men learned the art of casting heavy guns. Until 1543, they had forged them; a painful process, necessarily limited to small pieces. After that year they cast them round a core, and by 1588 they had evolved certain general types of ordnance which remained in use, in the British Navy, almost unchanged, until after the Crimean War. The Elizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have now been described, but a few words may be added with reference to the muzzle-loaders. The charge for these was contained in cartridges, covered with canvas, or "paper royall" (i.e. parchment), though the parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be "wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When the gun was loaded the gunner filled the touch-hole with his priming powder, from a horn he carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp wire, called the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the cartridge, so that the priming powder might have direct access to the powder of the charge. He then sprinkled a little train of powder along the gun, from the touch-hole to the base-ring, for if he applied the match directly to the touch-hole the force of the explosion was liable to blow his linstock from his hand. In any case the "huff" or "spit" of fire, from the touch-hole, burned little holes, like pock-marks, in the beams overhead. The match was applied smartly, with a sharp drawing back of the hand, the gunner stepping quickly aside to avoid the recoil. He stepped back, and stood, on the side of the gun opposite to that on which the cartridges were stored, so that there might be no chance of a spark from his match setting fire to the ammunition. Spare match, newly soaked in saltpetre water, lay coiled in a little tub beside the gun. The cartridges, contained in latten buckets, were placed in a barrel by the gun and covered over with a skin of leather. The heavy shot were arranged in shot racks, known as "gardens," and these were ready to the gunner's hand, with "cheeses" of tampions or wads. The wads were made of soft wood, oakum, hay, straw, or "other such like." The sponges and rammers were hooked to the beams above the gun ready for use. The rammers were of hard wood, shod with brass, "to save the Head from cleaving." The sponges were of soft fast wood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow, or such like," and had heads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll," nailed to the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powder shovels, for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea.
The guns were elevated or depressed by means of handspikes and quoins. Quoins were blocks of wood, square, and wedge-shaped, with ring-hooks screwed in them for the greater ease of handling. Two of the gun's crew raised the base of the cannon upon their handspikes, using the "steps" of the gun carriage as their fulcra. A third slid a quoin along the "bed" of the carriage, under the gun, to support it at the required height. The recoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, but it was limited by the stout rope called the breeching, which ran round the base of the gun, from each side of the port-hole, and kept it from running back more than its own length. When it had recoiled it was in the position for sponging and loading, being kept from running out again, with the roll of the ship, by a train, or preventer tackle, hooked to a ring-bolt in amidships. In action, particularly in violent action, the guns became very hot, and "kicked" dangerously. Often they recoiled with such force as to overturn, or to snap the breeching, or to leap up to strike the upper beams. Brass guns were more skittish than iron, but all guns needed a rest of two or three hours, if possible, after continual firing for more than eight hours at a time. To cool a gun in action, to keep it from bursting, or becoming red-hot, John Roberts advises sponging "with spunges wet in ley and water, or water and vinegar, or with the coolest fresh or salt water, bathing and washing her both within and without." This process "if the Service is hot, as it was with us at Bargen" should be repeated, "every eighth or tenth shot." The powder in use for cannon was called Ordnance or Corne-powder. It was made in the following proportion. To every five pounds of refined saltpetre, one pound of good willow, or alder, charcoal, and one pound of fine yellow sulphur. The ingredients were braised together in a mortar, moistened with water distilled of orange rinds, or aqua-vitæ, and finally dried and sifted. It was a bright, "tawny blewish colour" when well made. Fine powder, for muskets or priming seems to have had a greater proportion of saltpetre.
The Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson, contain a list of the sorts of cannon mounted in ships of the time of Queen Elizabeth. It is not exhaustive, but as Robert Norton and Sir Jonas Moore give similar lists, the curious may check the one with the other.
| Bore | Weight of Cannon | Weight of Shot | Weight of Powder | Point Blank Range | Random | Length in 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.