Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/338

318 GUNPOWDEE land. of brass, and iron balls, for the defence of the commune, camps, and territory of the republic. First use If the testimony of John Barbour, archdeacon of Aber- iii Eng- deen, who wrote in 1375, is to be believed, cannon, which he calls "crakys of war," were employed during the invasion of Scotland by Edward III. in 1327 ; but they are not mentioned in the accounts of the expenses of this war pre served in the record oilice. An indenture, first published by Sir N. H. Nicolas in his Hist. Iluyal Navy (London, 1847), and since by Lieut. -Colonel H. Brackenbury (Proceedings R. A. Institution, 18G5), stated to be of 12 Edward III., 1338, contains several references to small cannon as among the stores of the tower, and also mentions " un petit barrell de gonpouder le quart plein." If authentic, this is certainly the first distinct mention of gunpowder in Great Britain we now possess, but doubts have since been thrown upon the date of this MS. It, however, seems certain, from a con temporary document in the National Library in Paris, that, in this same year 1338, there existed in the marine arsenal at Rouen, an iron weapon, called " pot de fer," for pro pelling bolts, together with some saltpetre and sulphur to make powder for the same ; at this period the ingredients were usually kept separate, and mixed when required. From the year 1345, 19 Edward III., we have, preserved in the Record Office, reliable accounts of the purchase of ingredients needed for the fabrication of gunpowder, and of the shipping of cannon for France. In 1346 Edward III. ordered all the saltpetre and sulphur that could be found to be bought up for him, but the quantities obtained were very small. Whether it be true or not that cannon were used by the English at Crecy in that year belongs rather to the question of the employment of artillery in the field; it has been maintained that such was the case by Napoleon III. (Etudes sur le passe et Vavenir de V Ar tiller ie}. It may be noted that Petrarch, about the year 1344, in his dialogues De remediis utriusque fortunce, speaks of " brazen globes cast forth by the force of flame with a hor rible sound of thunder " as having become as common as any other kind of weapon. In the year 1377, being the first of Richard II., Thomas Norbury was ordered to buy, amongst other munitions, sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal to be sent to the castle of Brest. In 1414 Henry V. ordered that no gunpowder should be taken out of the kingdom without special licence ; in the same year this monarch also ordered twenty pipes of powder made of willow charcoal, and various other articles for the use of the guns. It was not, however, until the reign of Elizabeth that the manufacture of gunpowder can be said to have been estab lished in England. The greater portion required had been previously imported from abroad, and the trade had been an open one ; but the threatening attitude of Spain com pelled the Government to provide more efficient means of defence, and patents were issued by the crown for the manu facture of gunpowder, constituting it a monopoly. Early in this reign also, saltpetre began to be artificially produced in England, but the quantity so obtained formed a very small proportion of the supply needed, the remainder being brought from various parts of the Continent, and from Barbary. Again, in 1623, nominally in order to prevent the sale of weak or defective powder, a proclamation was issued by James I., prohibiting its manufacture, as well as lhat of saltpetre, except under the king s commission, and directing that all gunpowder should be proved and marked by the sworn proof-master. A little later, in 1626, the East India Company had commenced the importation of saltpetre, and had also erected powder works in Surrey. Their renewed charter in 1693 contained a clause provid ing that 500 tons of saltpetre were to be furnished to the ordnance annually, and from this time forward we hear of no difficulty, at least in England, of obtaining the chief ingredient of gunpowder, although on the Continent great attention has been paid to its artificial production ; this was especially the case in France during the reign of Napoleon I., when the supremacy of Great Britain at sea for many years prevented the importation of saltpetre by her enemies. About the year 1590, George Evelyn, grandfather of the celebrated John Evelyn of Wooton, received the royal licence to set up powder mills at Long Ditton and Godstone ; the Evelyns are said to have brought the art from Holland. The works at Faversham, afterwards for so many years the Government gunpowder factory, date from Elizabeth s reign, but were then of secondary importance to those at Godstone. There seems reason, however, to suppose that powder mills existed at Waltham Abbey so far back as 1561, for in that year we find John Thomworth of Waltham in treaty, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth, for the purchase of saltpetre, sulphur, and staves for barrels. Fuller also refers (English Worthies, i. 338) to the powder mills at Waltham Abbey, of which place he was appointed vicar in 164L In 1787 they were sold to the crown by John Walton, and reorgan ized under the superintendence of the famous Sir William Congreve. The old royal factory at Faversham was given up after the peace of 1815, being first let and afterwards sold to the well-known firm of Messrs John Hall & Son ; a third Government factory at Ballincollig was disposed of a few years later. The Waltham Abbey works have been greatly enlarged of recent years, and no expense has been spared to render them, by the introduction of new and improved machinery, the most complete as well as the safest in the world. It is impossible to describe in detail the various improvements which have been made in the manu facture of gunpowder, but the most important will be briefly stated when describing the successive processes to which the ingredients are subjected. THE INGREDIENTS AND THEIR ACTION. The objects to be attained in the production of an Ob.jei explosive agent for artillery and small arms are (a) the to l5e maximum of propelling force ; (b) the minimum of initial attai1 pressure in the bore of gun ; (c) uniformity of action ; (d) freedom from fouling, especially in small-arm powders ; (e) durability, i.e., power to bear transport and keep well in store. Of all explosive substances at present known, gun powder alone can be said to fulfil the first three conditions. Its advantages may be summed up as follows : (a) the Adva rate of combustion of gunpowder is gradual compared with tages that of most other explosives; and, both by adjusting the gl proportions of the ingredients and varying the mechanical processes of manufacture, its explosiveness can be modified so as to suit every description of weapon ; (6) the ingredients are easily procured, and are comparatively cheap ; (c) with proper precautions, it is comparatively safe in manufacture, in store, and in transport ; it also keeps well in a moderately dry atmosphere. The earliest gunpowder used in cannon in Europe con- Com- sisted of equal parts of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, positi ground up and mixed together as required, and must have proved a mixture far inferior in strength to that given in the MS. of Marcus Graecus. To account for the use of such a very weak composition long after better proportions had been ascertained, it must be remembered that the earliest cannon were composed of iron staves roughly hooped together"; and tubes of thin iron, or even of wood or leather, with rope coiled round them ; were sometimes used. Indeed the effective application of gunpowder as a propelling agent involves a whole series of inventions, and it was doubtless chiefly owing to the backward state of mechanical science during the Middle Ages that such weak powders were

employed. The slow growth of artillery science in Europe