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These cannons were eight feet in length; and as their mouths were large enough to hold a man's head, it was supposed that each of these terrible machines, scarcely known as yet to the Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds. After the cannons came culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of which shot balls the size of a grenade.
Besides harquebuses for the soldiers, there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such as culverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four of the cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inches in diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her men rather than upon the size of her ships that England relied for victory.
One of the pirates was faster than the other, and soon coming within reach, opened fire upon the Rose with a heavy cannon, which she carried in her bow. The crew of the Rose replied with their falconets and sakers from the poop. The corsair at first did not keep her course direct for the ship, but rowed once or twice round her, firing as she did so.
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 enemy, at this period, seemed to be slackening their efforts upon the right and in the centre, and several discharges of cannon were heard from the lusthaus. "Go," said the King to Le Balafre and Quentin, the instant his ear had caught the sound; "they have got up the sakers and falconets the pleasure house is safe, blessed be the Holy Virgin!
Our company seeing us not to return according to our appointment, left off shooting muskets and began to shoot falconets, for they feared some mishap had befallen us; but before night we came aboard again, with our boat laden with ice, which made very good fresh water. Then we bent our course toward the north, hoping by that means to double the land.
They were accompanied by two pieces of small artillery called falconets, each having a bore of two inches and carrying a shot weighing about a pound and a half, being, with the three arquebusiers, General De Candia's command.
With her Kerry recruits, Nuala had a hundred and eighty men, so she had set to work to build a tower and small keep on the opposite island, that Gorumna itself might be more easily defended. Also she had taken some falconets and two bastards out of a large French ship, and had set about building a battery outside the castle that would overlook the harbor.
His infantry was deficient in firearms, the place of which was supplied by the long pike. He had also six small cannon, or falconets, as they were called, which, with his cavalry, formed into two equal divisions, he disposed on the flanks of his infantry. Thus prepared, he calmly awaited the approach of the enemy.
Finally, in February 1519, when all the reinforcements were assembled, Cortés found he had eleven vessels, one hundred and ten mariners, five hundred and fifty-three soldiers, and two hundred Indians. He also had sixteen horses, ten large guns, and four lighter, which were called falconets.
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