About the beginning of the seventeenth century the practice was introduced and has been retained ever since—with the exception of the later guns, which are indicated by their weight or the diameter of their calibre—of describing the guns by the weight of their shot.
A remarkable advance in the science of gun-making was shown when the carronade was introduced by the Carron Company. Briefly, this weapon may be described as a short heavy gun, carrying a heavy shot, and using a moderate charge of powder. It was a wonderfully destructive weapon at short range, and as a broadside gun held its own well into the middle of the nineteenth century. A favourite carronade was that of six diameters, one of which is here illustrated; that is, the length of the bore was six times the diameter of the calibre at the gun’s mouth.
These guns were made in two or three patterns. One was the familiar swivel, another had the trunnions below the gun centre so that the gun rested upon them, and the third and most common was that with the trunnions at the sides. The carriages, too, were exceedingly ingenious, being devised to permit of meeting the recoil as well as adding to the facility of handling the weapon, and the sighting arrangements did not leave the gunner much opportunity of going wrong provided he obeyed the instructions.
It was customary to fire a round, solid iron shot from these guns. On one occasion a very different missile was employed. An armed merchantman was overtaken by a privateer, and being short of cannon balls, the cargo was broached. The first missile hit the side of the privateer and smashed. The second hit a mast, dented it, and flew to pieces. Another missile smashed itself and a privateersman’s head at the same time, and the enemy then hauled off, wondering what new projectile had now been discovered. The merchant ship had defended itself with round Dutch cheeses—a testimony alike to the ingenuity of her commander and the strength of the missiles.
The East India Company had several vessels built in the Far East, and great was the outcry at the proposal that Indian-built ships should be included in the British Navy. However, the success which attended the armed ships of the Company, such, for instance as the Grappler, launched at Bombay, in 1804, was responsible for the launch of a “beautiful frigate” at Bombay, called The Pitt, the first ever built in India for His Majesty’s service.[26] A picture of her is in the Guildhall Museum, London.
The merchant vessels of the East in the seventeenth century were usually built of teak and well armed, and if they were not particularly fast sailers—some were particularly slow—they were usually able to withstand the shot of all but the heaviest guns which the pirates and privateers carried who infested those seas. Some of the greatest French naval heroes were men who were dreaded from one side of the Indian ocean to the other.
One of the vessels constructed in those days and still afloat is the sailing ship Success, which, after an eventful career, was one of the “floating hells” in which convicts were imprisoned near Melbourne for some years, then became a coal hulk, was somehow saved from destruction when her equally evil companion ships were ordered to be broken up, was turned into an exhibition ship showing her as a prison ship, was scuttled in Sydney harbour, raised again, and has since toured the world. She saw active service about a hundred years ago, and still bears on her tough sides the marks of the enemy’s cannon balls. She is probably the last of her type afloat. The East Indiamen and the West Indiamen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries invariably carried guns, and needed them.
It is strange to think how recently the policing or safety of the seas has been secured, for the Liverpool newspapers contained, even in times of peace, advertisements that vessels would sail with the convoy, and that such and such a warship would act as escort.
Even along the British coasts the Carron Company armed its schooners, and offered special inducements to those passengers who were willing and able to assist the crew to repel a possible attack.