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He inquired also with a merry countenance after the piece of ordnance that Smith had promised to send him, and Smith, with equal jocularity, replied that he had offered the men four demi-culverins, which they found too heavy to carry. This night they quartered with Powhatan, and were liberally feasted, and entertained with singing, dancing, and orations. The next day Captain Newport came ashore.

He inquired also with a merry countenance after the piece of ordnance that Smith had promised to send him, and Smith, with equal jocularity, replied that he had offered the men four demi-culverins, which they found too heavy to carry. This night they quartered with Powhatan, and were liberally feasted, and entertained with singing, dancing, and orations. The next day Captain Newport came ashore.

I. Cannon proper, from 16 to 28 caliber, of 8.5-inch bore and 12 feet in length, firing 65-pound shot. The demi-cannon, which was the largest gun carried on ships of the time, was 6.5 inches by 9 feet and fired 30-pound shot. II. Culverins, 28 to 34 caliber long guns, 5 inches by 12 feet, firing 17-pound shot. Demi-culverins were 9-pounders.

He inquired also with a merry countenance after the piece of ordnance that Smith had promised to send him, and Smith, with equal jocularity, replied that he had offered the men four demi-culverins, which they found too heavy to carry. This night they quartered with Powhatan, and were liberally feasted, and entertained with singing, dancing, and orations. The next day Captain Newport came ashore.

The corporal had already, what with cutting off the ends of my uncle Toby's spouts hacking and chiseling up the sides of his leaden gutters, melting down his pewter shaving-bason, and going at last, like Lewis the Fourteenth, on to the top of the church, for spare ends, &c. he had that very campaign brought no less than eight new battering cannons, besides three demi-culverins, into the field; my uncle Toby's demand for two more pieces for the redoubt, had set the corporal at work again; and no better resource offering, he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery window: and as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages.

She measured somewhat under 400 tons, and mounted 60 guns, consisting of 18 light demi-culverins or short 9-pounders on the main-deck, 6 light sakers on the quarter-deck, and 2 mignons on the after-raised deck, which we should now call the poop.

Her lower tier had 30 ports which were furnished with demi-cannon and whole cannon throughout; her middle tier had also 30 ports of demi-culverins and whole culverins; her third tier had 36 ports for other ordnance; her forecastle had 12 ports; and her half-deck 13 ports.

In those days a great variety of ordnance were employed, to which our ancestors gave the odd-sounding names of cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, demi-culverins, sakers, mynions, falcons, falconets, portpiece-halls, port-piece-chambers, fowler-halls, and curthalls. These guns varied very much in length and in the weight of their shot.

The old soldier and the Puritan instantly plunged into a deep and learned disquisition upon the merits of wall-pieces, drakes, demi-culverins, sakers, minions, mortar-pieces, falcons, and pattereroes, concerning all which pieces of ordnance Saxon had strong opinions to offer, fortified by many personal hazards and experiences.