The carronade guns, which were mounted on all ships in addition to their regulation iron ordnance, were the invention of a Mr Gascoine. They were named after the town in Scotland where they were first cast. They first came into use in 1779. They were short, squat guns, ranging from about five to two feet in length, and flinging balls of from 6 to 12 lbs. in weight. They were lighter than the ordinary guns, and were therefore useful for the quarter-deck, and spar-deck batteries. They were easily managed, and a crew of four men could work the heaviest of them. They were mounted on sliding wooden carriages traversing on a wheel, while the gun was so fixed upon the carriage that it would slide in or out as desired. They were not elevated by handspikes, like the iron main-batteries, for a screw which passed through the iron pomelion gave them their elevation or depression. The coins could be used to give extraordinary depression if such were needed.
Being very short, the point-blank range of a carronade was small, varying from 450 to 230 yards, according to the size of the gun. At an elevation of 4°, at which a 32-pounder gun would carry nearly a mile, the 32-pounder carronade carried less than 1000 yards. But at close quarters the carronade was a much more terrible weapon than any gun mounted on the lower-deck. At a short distance it made such fearful havoc of a ship’s side that it was called the “smasher” or “devil-gun.” It had several very serious defects. It was so short a piece that, when run out, it barely cleared the sill of its port. To fire it in that position endangered the rigging and ship’s side, though no case has been reported of a ship having been set on fire by the discharge of a carronade. Another serious defect was the violence of the recoil, which sometimes split the carriage and dismounted the gun. Admiral Bertie’s invention modified this evil, but never overcame it. Carronades were loaded and fired in precisely the same way as iron guns of the lower batteries.
The shot fired by guns and carronades was usually spherical or “round-shot,” made of cast iron. Leaden round-shot was sometimes used, apparently with great effect, but the cost was too great to admit of its general use. A store of round-shot, scraped very clean, was always carried in the shot racks on the gun-decks. These shot were kept free from rust by paint or grease. Shot were sometimes so thickly coated with rust, when brought from the hold, that they would not enter the muzzles of the guns for which they were cast. The officers generally endeavoured to keep fifteen or twenty rounds of shot scraped clean in order to avoid the use of rusty balls until the brunt of the fight was over. In close action another kind of shot was used as a scourer or murderer. This was grape shot, “a combination of balls,” weighing each 2 lbs., which were packed up in cylindrical canvas bags, of the size of the cannon ball generally used for the gun. A bag of 16 iron balls was used for a 32-pounder, of 12 for a 24-pounder, and of 9 for an 18-pounder. The bags were strongly corded into their cylindrical shape. These 2-lb. iron balls could cut through chain, so that a discharge of them often helped to bring down an enemy’s mast, by cutting the stays and standing rigging. In hot actions, when the ships lay “yard-arm to yard-arm,” close alongside each other, every second gun was loaded with bags of grape-shot, because “in any close action they are capable of committing infinite ravages against both men and material.” To clear an enemy’s decks at close range, a kind of shot called case or canister was sometimes used. This was made of leaden musket and pistol bullets, or of shot of half-a-pound weight, packed up tightly in tin cylinders. At very close range this sort of shot committed most ghastly massacre, but it could not be used at a distance of more than 200 yards, as the shot scattered over a wide area, and so lost its effect. Chain shot, or two balls linked together by an iron chain, was used to bring down masts and spars. Bar shot, or two half-round shot joined by a bar was sometimes used, particularly by the French. Bar shot were often frapped about with combustibles, which ignited when the gun was fired, and so set fire to the sails or hull of the opposing ship. Langrel, or langridge, was a collection of old iron, nuts, bolts, bars, and scraps of chain, tied by rope yarns into “a sort of a cylinder,” and so fired at masts and rigging. Dismantling shot or shot made of half-a-dozen iron bars, “each about two feet long, fastened by ring-heads to a strong ring,” was most efficacious in tearing off sails, and bringing down masts and spars. In close action, and when the guns grew hot, the charges of powder were always reduced by at least a third. When the ships lay close together, the charges were made very small, because shot which barely penetrated a ship’s timber occasioned “the greatest shake,” and tore off “the greatest number of, and largest, splinters.” As splinters were nearly always more terrible (and more feared) than shot, the gunners did their best to produce them. In some ships the opening broadsides were fired with light charges in order that the bullets might shatter the enemy’s timber and send the splinters flying.
The small-arms in general use in the Navy were the musket, the musketoon, the pistol, the cutlass, the boarding-pike, the axe or tomahawk, the bayonet, the sailor’s knife, and the midshipman’s dirk. The musket was the weapon of the marines. It was a flint-lock, muzzle-loading, smooth-bore, firing a ball of from 1 to 2 ounces, with a charge of 4½ drachms of powder. It could be fired with comparative certainty at any object within 100 yards. Its extreme range may have been a quarter of a mile. It sometimes killed at 200 yards. Its barrel was ¾ of an inch in diameter. Its length, from muzzle to pan, was 3 feet 6 inches. The musketeer carried his cartridges in a box. In loading he had to bite off the bullet from the top of the cartridge, so as to expose the powder. He then sprinkled a little of the powder into the pan of the gun, snapped the pan to, dropped the cartridge down the muzzle, rammed it home, with the bullet on top, and then took aim and fired. The sailors were drilled in the use of the musket whenever opportunity offered.
The musketoon was a short heavy musket with a big bore. It threw a ball weighing from 5 to 7½ ounces. It was only used at close quarters. Some musketoons had bell mouths, like blunderbusses. They kicked very dangerously, but were most effective in repelling boarders.
There were various kinds of pistols in use, some of them of more than one barrel. The boarders, or men told off from each gun to board an enemy’s ship, if occasion served, were always supplied with at least two pistols for use at close-quarters. They were loaded with cartridges, which had to be bitten like the cartridges of the muskets. A boarder, in the rush and hurry of the hand-to-hand fighting, had never time to reload after he had emptied his pistol barrels. He flung the weapons away immediately he had burned his cartridges, and laid about him with his cutlass, boarding-axe, or boarding-pike. As a last resource he had always his sailor’s knife. The cutlass was a curved heavy cutting sword, about 3 feet long, with a black japanned hilt and basket-guard. The axe was a small heavy axe, with a short steel head and a projecting spike. It was used less as a weapon than as a tool for cutting the lanyards of stays and shrouds, the running rigging, etc. etc. The boarding-pike or half-pike was a spike of steel fixed on a staff of ash. It was a very useful tool for the driving back of boarders. Rows of them, diversified with tomahawks, were sometimes placed along the poop and forecastle, with the hafts scraped clean, and the steels blackened. The other small-arms, such as pistols and cutlasses, were stored in arm-chests in different parts of the ship, and in stands about the masts below decks. Sergeants of marines still carried halberds or whole pikes, about 8 feet long, with heads which combined the spear and axe, “so that they serve equally to cut down or push withal.” With these instruments the sergeants aligned their files at muster or inspection. As supplementary weapons some ships carried small swivel guns in the tops aloft, to scour the upper-decks and tops of the enemy at close range. A gun of this kind threw a shot of half-a-pound weight. It mounted on an iron crotch, and had a long iron handle in place of a cascabel, by which it could be turned and pointed.
Before closing this description of the naval armaments in use we must give some short account of the gun ports. A gun port was a square opening in the ship’s side, fitted with a heavy, hinged wooden lid, opening outward. When closed, this lid was hooked to an iron bar to keep it from swinging outward as the ship rolled. To open a port one had to haul upon a rope, called a port-tackle, which led from the inside of the ship through a round hole above the port, and thence down to a ring on the outside of the lid. When the ports were open to admit the air the guns were sometimes fitted with “half-ports” or wooden screens, through which their muzzles pointed, but which kept out most of the spray which dashed against the sides. The hinges of the port-lids were protected from wet by little semicircular slips of wood arched just above them. These slips were known as port-riggles. The carpenters were expected to attend to the opening and lowering of the ports, so that the lids, when opened, might all make the same angle from the ship’s side.
In some ships the centres of the port-lids were fitted with thick glass bull’s-eyes, which admitted light when the ports were battened in.
A THREE-DECKER