“The nine pounders lately cast, being, as the author is informed, still lighter than what is here represented, they may perhaps be only transformed into twelve pounders; but this will be a very great addition of strength, and the twelve-pounders thus borne will be considerably lighter than the smallest nine-pounders now in use. The weight of the present three-pounders are not remembered exactly by the author; but he doubts not, but they are heavier than the proposed six-pounders, and may therefore be changed for them.
“That many objections will be made to the present proposal is not to be questioned; but, as they will equally hold against the use of the present thirty-two-pounders, which are known to be guns of unexceptionable service, that alone, it is conceived, will be an answer.
“If it be supposed (as ancient practice is always favourably heard) that the excesses in the proportionate weight of the small pieces must have been originally founded on some approved principle, or otherwise they could not have been brought into use, it may be answered, that a hundred years since there were four-pounders made use of, which were heavier than some of the present nine-pounders, and had the same prescription to plead in their behalf.—Perhaps the origin of this excess in the smaller pieces may be accounted for by supposing, that when guns are used in batteries on shore, their length cannot be in proportion to the diameter of their bore; because the parapet being of a considerable thickness, a short piece would, by its blast, ruin the embrasures; and the smaller pieces being for this reason made nearly of the same length with the larger, did hence receive their additional weight of metal. But this reason holds not at sea, where there is no other exception to the shortness of a piece, but the loss of force, which, in the instances here proposed, is altogether inconsiderable; for the old twelve-pounders, for example, being in length from nine feet to nine feet, and a half, the new ones here proposed will be from seven feet to seven and a half long. The difference in the force of the bullet, fired from these different pieces, is but little; and it will hereafter appear, that in the present subject much greater differences than these are of no consequence.
“If it should be said, that the new fabric here proposed must have the present allowance of powder (which in the smaller pieces is half the weight of the ball) diminished, and that it must be reduced to the rate of the thirty-two-pounders, which is only seven-sixteenths of the weight of the ball; it is answered, that if the powder in all ship-cannon whatever, was still farther reduced to one-third of the weight of the ball, or even less, it would be a considerable advantage, not only by the saving of ammunition, but by keeping the guns cooler and more quiet, and at the same time more effectually injuring the ships of the enemy[[3]]; for with the present allowance of powder the guns are heated, and their tackles and furniture strained, and this only to render the bullet less efficacious than it would prove if impelled by a smaller charge. Indeed in battering of walls, which are not to be penetrated by a single shot from any piece whatever, the velocity of the bullet, how much soever augmented, still produces a proportionate effect, by augmenting the depth to which it penetrates: but the sides of the strongest ships, and the greater part of her timbers, are of a limited thickness, insufficient to stop the generality of cannon bullets, fired at a reasonable distance, even with a less charge than is here proposed. And it is a matter of experiment, that a bullet, which can but just pass through a piece of timber, and loses almost all its motion thereby, has a much better chance of rending and fracturing it, than if it passed through it with a much greater velocity.
“That a much better judgment may be made of the reasonableness of this speculation, the author thinks proper to add (and he believes future experience will not contradict him) that a twelve-pounder, as here proposed, which is one of the smallest pieces at present under consideration, when charged with one-third of the weight of the bullet in powder, will penetrate a beam of the best seasoned toughest oak, to more than twenty inches depth; and if, instead of one solid beam, there are a number of small ones, or of planks laid together; then allowing for rending and tearing, frequent in such cases, he doubts not, but it will often go through near double that thickness, and this any where within a hundred yards distance: that is, any where within that distance, which the most experienced officers have recommended for naval engagements. In the same distance, a bullet from the twelve-pounders now in use, charged with half the weight of powder, will penetrate about one-third part deeper: but if the efforts of each piece are compared together at five hundred yards distance, the differences of their forces will not be considerable. If this be so, it will not be asserted, I imagine, that the twelve-pounder here proposed is less useful, or less efficacious, for all naval purposes, than the weightier twelve-pounder hitherto made use of.
“The author has in this proposal fixed on the thirty-two pounders, as the standard for the rest; because experience has long authorised them. But from the trials he has made, he is well satisfied, a much greater reduction of weight, than is here proposed, might safely take place; and that one fourth, or even one fifth of the weight of the bullet in powder, if properly disposed, is abundantly sufficient for every species of ship-guns[[4]]. However, the author is far from desiring, that his speculations should be relied on in an affair of this nature, where he pretends not to have tried the very matter he proposes, but founds his opinion on certain general principles and collateral experiments, which he conceives, he may apply to the present case without error. He would himself recommend an experimental examination of this proposal, as the only one to which credit ought to be given. What he intends by the present paper, is to represent it as a matter worthy of consideration, and really such as it appeared to him: if those to whose censure he submits it, are of the same opinion, there is an obvious method of determining how far his allegations are conclusive; and that is by directing one of these pieces to be cast, a twelve-pounder for instance, and letting it be proved with the same proportion of powder allotted for the proof of the thirty-two-pounders: Then if this piece be fired a number of times successively on a carriage, and its recoil, and degree of heat be attended to, and if the penetration of its bullet into a thick butt of oak-beams or plank be likewise examined, a judgment may thence be formed, of what may be expected from the piece in real service; and the result of these trials will be the most incontestable confutation or confirmation of this proposal.”
CANNONADE, as a term of the marine, may be defined the application of artillery to the purposes of naval war, or the direction of its efforts against some distant object intended to be seized or destroyed, as a ship, battery, or fortress.
Cannonading is therefore used in a vessel of war to take, sink, or burn the enemy’s ships, or to drive them from their defences ashore, and to batter and ruin their fortifications.
Since a large man of war may be considered as a combination of floating batteries, it is evident that the efforts of her artillery must in general be greatly superior to those of a fortress on the sea-coast: I say in general, because on some particular occasions her situation may be extremely dangerous, and her cannonading ineffectual. Her superiority consists in several circumstances, as, the power of bringing her different batteries to converge to one point; of shifting the line of her attack so as to do the greatest possible execution against the enemy; or to lie where she will be the least exposed to his shot: and chiefly because, by employing a much greater number of cannon against a fort than it can possibly return, the impression of her artillery against stone-walls soon, becomes decisive and irresistible. Besides these advantages in the attack, she is also greatly superior in point of defence: because the cannon shot passing with rapidity through her sides, seldom do any execution out of the line of their flight, or occasion much mischief by their splinters: whereas they very soon shatter and destroy the faces of a parapet, and produce incredible havoc amongst the men, by the fragments of the stones, &c. A ship may also retreat when she finds it too dangerous to remain longer exposed to the enemy’s fire, or when her own fire cannot produce the desired effect. Finally, the fluctuating situation of a ship, and of the element on which she rests, renders the efforts of bombs very uncertain, and altogether destroys the effect of the ricochet, or rolling and bounding shot, whose execution is so pernicious and destructive in a fortress or land-engagement; both of which, however, a ship may apply with great success. See Range.
The chief inconveniency to which a ship is exposed, on the contrary, is, that the low-laid cannon in a fort near the brink of the sea, may strike her repeatedly, on or under the surface of the water, so as to sink her before her cannonade can have any considerable efficacy.