In the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution.
The Mediterranean custom was different. The Marquis of Villafranca, whose advice was sought by Don John of Austria, thought there should not be more than two discharges before the galleys close, that the arquebussiers should not fire the second time until the blood of the man hit should splash back in their faces, and that the noise of the discharge should coincide with the ramming of the hostile vessel. But all the guns employed in the Mediterranean sea-fights were not of this order. In the tremendous struggle between the Cross and the Crescent much heavier artillery was used. One siege gun is said to have thrown a shot of 160 lb. During this struggle the Knights of Malta, after the capture of St. Elmo by the Turks, when the latter dishonoured the bodies of the slain knights, retaliated by beheading their Turkish prisoners and firing the heads back into the camp of the besieging Turks. The Knights combined unswerving fidelity to their principles and their masters, when they acknowledged any, with the utmost bravery, ferocity, and cruelty. There was little to choose between the leaders on either side, but the palm must be given to the Mohammedan leaders for their fertility of resource in extricating themselves from apparently hopeless situations. The chief of these were the brothers Barbaroussa, one of whom made himself King of Algiers, and they and others of the band were the greatest of the Barbary pirates, dreaded from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. The elder Barbaroussa and his worthy successor, Dragut Reis, became the chief admirals of the Turkish forces, the latter being killed in that terrible struggle at Malta in which St. Elmo fell, a fate which was only averted from the whole fortress by the remarkable genius of the greatest commander the knights ever possessed. By way of commemorating the services of the brothers Barbaroussa, the present Turkish government has named after them the two second-hand German warships it recently bought.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century the cannon were probably 42-pounders, the demi-cannon 32-pounders, and the culverins 18-pounders. Before an effort was made to systematise the armament of ships, hardly any two vessels carried the same number of guns. It was proposed in 1677 that a first-rate should carry twenty-six cannon with eight men to each; twenty-eight culverins, with five men to each; twenty-eight sakers on the upper deck, four on the forecastle, and twelve on the quarter deck, with three men to each saker; and two 3-pounders with two men each. A second-rate should carry twenty-six demi-cannon, with six men to each; twenty-six culverins; twenty-six sakers on the upper deck and ten on the quarter deck; and two 3-pounders, with the same number of men to the guns as a first-rate. A third-rater should carry twenty-six demi-cannon, twenty-six 12-pounders with four men to each; four forecastle and ten quarter deck sakers, and four 3-pounders. The remainder of the complements was to consist of two hundred and ninety-six men, two hundred and sixty-two men, and one hundred and sixty-two men for the three rates respectively, giving grand totals of seven hundred and eighty men, six hundred and sixty men, and four hundred and seventy men.
CARRONADE OF SIX DIAMETERS.
CARRONADE
THE CARRONADE AND ITS CARRIAGE.
From Drawings supplied by the Carron Co.