CANNON (continued)

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 it's 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 hereaster 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 further 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 quict, and at the same time more effectually injuring the ships of the enemy; 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.

"The change proposed here, of reducing the quantity of powder in all ship guns to one-third of the weight of the bullet, has for some time past been practised by the French in a much severer service, where the encreasing the velocity of the bullet could not at any time diminish it's effect; the service I mean is battering in breach. For I learn, that of late years all their breaches, in the different sieges they have undertaken, have been made with this very charge, that is, their twenty-four-pounders have been loaded with eight pounds of powder, and they have found, that though the penetration of the bullet is less with this charge than with a larger one, yet the other conveniencies attending this smaller charge, are more than sufficient to balance that particular.

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