actly similar, threw small cross-bar
shot "to cut Sails and Rigging." In Elizabethan times it was carried in
the tops of fighting ships, and on the rails and gunwales of
merchantmen.

In the reign of Henry VIII., a ship called the _Mary Rose_, of 500 tons,
took part in the battle with the French, in St Helens Roads, off
Brading. It was a sultry summer day, almost windless, when the action
began, and the _Mary Rose_ suffered much (being unable to stir) from the
gun-fire of the French galleys. At noon, when a breeze sprang up, and
the galleys drew off, the _Mary Rose_ sent her men to dinner. Her lower
ports, which were cut too low down, were open, and the wind heeled her
over, so that the sea rushed in to them. She sank in deep water, in a
few moments, carrying with her her captain, and all the gay company on
board. In 1836 some divers recovered a few of her cannon, of the kinds
we have described, some of brass, some of iron. The iron guns had been
painted red and black. Those of brass, in all probability, had been
burnished, like so much gold. These relics may be seen by the curious,
at Woolwich, in the Museum of Ordnance, to which they were presented by
their salver.

In the reign of Elizabeth, cannon were much less primitive, for a great
advance took place directly men learned the art of casting heavy guns.
Until 1543, they had forged them; a painful process, necessarily limited
to small pieces. After that year they cast them round a core, and by
1588 they had evolved certain general types of ordnance which remained
in use, in the British Navy, almost unchanged, until after the Crimean
War. The Elizabethan breech-loaders, and their methods, have now been
described, but a few words may be added with reference to the
muzzle-loaders. The charge for these was contained in cartridges,
covered with canvas, or "paper royall" (_i.e._ parchment), though the
parchment used to foul the gun at each discharge. Burning scraps of it
remained in the bore, so that, before reloading, the weapon had to be
"wormed," or scraped out, with an instrument like an edged corkscrew. A
tampion, or wad, of oakum or the like, was rammed down between the
cartridge and the ball, and a second wad kept the ball in place. When
the gun was loaded the gunner filled the touch-hole with his priming
powder, from a horn he carried in his belt, after thrusting a sharp
wire, called the priming-iron, down the touch-hole, through the
cartridge, so that the primi