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Updated: June 8, 2025
But this I am free to tell thee that in the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my lord's parlour that hath its windows to the moat, and the great bay window of the hall that looks into that court, there goeth a descent, as it seemeth of stairs only; but to him that knoweth how to pull a certain tricker, as of an harquebus or musquetoon, the whole thing turneth around, and straightway from a stair passeth into an easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up and down.
In a company of a hundred and thirteen, including officers, he had sixty-four armed with firelocks to thirty carrying pikes and halberds. As before his time the proportion between the arms had been nearly even; he thus more than doubled the number of firearms. Of these weapons there were two sorts, the musket and the harquebus. The musket was a long, heavy, unmanageable instrument.
Men hurried along the usually lonely road in groups, with weapons in their hands, the old fowling-piece of seven-foot barrel, with which the Puritans had shot ducks on the river and Walden Pond; the heavy harquebus, which perhaps had levelled one of King Philip's Indians; the old King gun, that blazed away at the French of Louisburg or Quebec, hunter, husbandman, all were hurrying each other.
Suddenly, from a low earthwork hastily raised in the shadow of the fortress wall, and masked by bushes, burst a withering fire of chain-shot from cannon and culverin, of slighter missiles from falcon and bastard and saker, caliver and harquebus.
"I tell you, on the credit of a poor gentleman," he said, "that there were five hundred discharges of demi-cannon, culverin, and demi-culverin, from the Vanguard; and when I was farthest off in firing my pieces, I was not out of shot of their harquebus, and most time within speech, one of another."
In a company of a hundred and thirteen, including officers, he had sixty-four armed with firelocks to thirty carrying pikes and halberds. As before his time the proportion between the arms had been nearly even; he thus more than doubled the number of firearms. Of these weapons there were two sorts, the musket and the harquebus. The musket was a long, heavy, unmanageable instrument.
Armory hall was a large and lofty chamber with vaulted ceiling, that dated back almost to the early Norman period; its walls, decorated in geometrical designs, were covered with many varieties of antique weapons of warfare; halberd and mace gleamed and mingled with harquebus, poleax or lance.
The harquebus or hak-bus, hook-gun, so called because of the hook in the front part of the barrel to give steadiness in firing was much lighter, was discharged from the hand; and carried bullets of twenty-four to the pound. Both weapons had matchlocks. The pike was eighteen feet long at least, and pikemen as well as halberdsmen carried rapiers.
But this was evidently a little island afar, and these were naked, savage men. The expedition was provident. It had for all. The Portuguese, our great navigators, had taught what the naked African liked. A basket stood at hand filled with pieces of colored cloth, beads, caps, hawk bells, fishhooks, toys of sorts. For that we might have trouble, four harquebus men and four crossbows were going.
In a company of a hundred and thirteen, including officers, he had sixty-four armed with firelocks to thirty carrying pikes and halberds. As before his time the proportion between the arms had been nearly even; he thus more than doubled the number of firearms. Of these weapons there were two sorts, the musket and the harquebus. The musket was a long, heavy, unmanageable instrument.
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