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These pieces were in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but by degrees other names were given, so that the titles applied to cannon from, let me say, the days of Henry VIII. down to the close of the last century, should furnish out an inventory long enough to fill many pages.

To the above list, given by Ralph Willett in a paper on British naval architecture, other examples may be added from the researches of James. He speaks of the cannon-serpentine and bastard-cannon as corresponding with the 42-pounder. The carronade dates as late as 1779, and takes its name from the Scotch town where it was invented. Another comparatively recent gun he speaks of as Gover’s, or Congreve’s, the Americans naming a similar weapon a Columbiad. Other guns are not mentioned by the historian, though of all our marine artillery they played, as small weapons, the largest part in our wars last century. The swivel cannon carried a shot of half a pound; it was fixed in a socket on the ship’s side, or stern, or bow, and in her tops. The socket that supported it was bored in a piece of oak, hooped with iron, to enable it to sustain the recoil. It was, indeed, a modernized form of the old pettararoe, and was turned about at will by an iron handle affixed to its cascabel; when worked in the tops it was charged with musket-balls, and fired down at the enemy’s decks. The coehorn was a small mortar, also fixed on a swivel, and chiefly used for firing grenadoes, as they were called, or bullets from merchantmen’s close quarters when they were boarded. For yard-arm fighting there was the “powder-flask”—a flask charged with gunpowder, and fitted with a fuse; it was hurled into the enemy’s deck immediately before the assault. Another device was the “stink-pot,” still in vogue with John Chinaman, an earthen shell suspended from the yard-arm or end of the bowsprit. This machine was charged with powder mixed with materials which threw up a disgusting, suffocating smoke and smell. The notion of these apparatuses was to create confusion, in the midst of which and under cover of the thick vapour the detachment rushed aboard, cutlass, and sword, and pistol in hand. Another contrivance was the “organ,” the grandfather of the Mitrailleuse—a machine formed of six or seven musket-barrels fixed upon one stock so as to be fired at once. There was also the fire-arrow, a small iron dart, furnished with springs and bars, and a match saturated with powder and sulphur, wound round the shaft. It was usually fired from a swivel, at the enemy’s sails. The match was ignited by the explosion, and the dart, penetrating the sail, set the cloths on fire. The springs and bars prevented the arrow from passing through the canvas. The musquetoon was a sort of carbine, with a barrel spirally rifled from the breech; the explosion lengthened the ball to about the breadth of a finger. The old fire-pike possessed something of the character of the fire-arrow. Another weapon of the fusil pattern is indicated in Sir William Monson’s “Building of Ships:” “As I have said, such a ship that has neither forecastle, copperidge head, nor any other manner of defence, but with her men only; that hath no fowlers, which are pieces of great importance, after a ship is boarded and entred, or lieth board and board; for the ordnance stands her in little stead, and is as apt to endanger themselves as their enemy; for in giving fire, it may take hold of pitch, tar, oakum, or powder, and burn them both for company; but a murderer or fowler, being shot out of their own ship, laden with dice shot, will scour the deck of the enemy, and not suffer the head of a man to appear.” It is evident that the “murderer” or “fowler” was a sort of fusil.^[16]