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Updated: June 16, 2025
A launch and whaleboat from the new Astrolabe were steered to this locality, and after going to exhausting lengths, their crews managed to dredge up an anchor weighing 1,800 pounds, a cast-iron eight-pounder cannon, a lead ingot, and two copper swivel guns.
The casting and handling is the same as with the frog-bait and is very killing for bass, pickerel and mascalonge, It is a good lure for salmon trout also; but, for him it was found better to fasten the bait with the lower hook in a way to give it a spinning motion; and this necessitates the use of a swivel, which I do not like; because, "a rope is as strong as its weakest part"; and I have more than once found that weakest part the swivel.
"Easy with that, men easy," he ran on, to the fellows who were shifting the powder; and then suddenly observing me examining the swivel we carried amidships, a long brass nine, "Here you, ship's boy," he cried, "out o' that! Off with you to the cook and get some work." And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the doctor, "I'll have no favourites on my ship."
You're not going to fire the thing?" "Ay the morn's mornin', my lord." "What will that be for?" "Ow, jist to wauk yer lordship." "Hm!" said his lordship, with more expression than articulation. "Will I no lod her?" asked Malcolm, throwing down the ramrod, and approaching the swivel, as if to turn the muzzle of it again into the embrasure. "Oh, yes! load her by all means.
Another shot and another followed without result, and by this time we were getting well out of range of the swivel gun, a poor, roughly-made piece, and our distance was being rapidly increased. "Going away!" said Ching, as we saw the great mat-sails of the junk fill. "Or to come in chase which?" said Mr Brooke quietly.
Their canoes were of various sizes; the bottom is hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, and they were generally raised with an upper work of split bamboo, which was set very close and light; they had an outrigger on each side to balance them; they had also a larger boat on which they mounted three small pieces of cannon, of brass; these pieces, I was told, were of their own manufactory, which I could readily believe, as they were of a very different make to any I had ever seen; they were very long, and of narrow bore, and were mounted with a swivel, upon posts, placed one at each end, and one in the center of the boat; they had a long wooden tail fixed to them, by which they turn about and point them.
Then suddenly the line fell slack, and the half-a-dozen men who were holding it went over on their backs, heels up. In mournful silence we hauled it in, and then, oh woe! the hook, our prized, our beautiful hook, was gone! and with it two feet of the chain, which had parted at the centre swivel. That particular ta~nifa was seen no more.
As half of Benjamins charge escaped through the touch-hole, the whole volley of the musketry preceded the report of the swivel.
In the bows, an 18 and a 12-pounder; in the stern, two 9's; in broadside, from four to six 6's. There is in this a somewhat droll reminder of the disputed merits of bow, stern, and broadside fire, in a modern iron-clad; and the practical conclusion is much the same. The gondolas had one 12-pounder and two 6's. All the vessels of both parties carried a number of swivel guns.
I thought, however, that the pleasantest toys to play with during this interval were my pistols, and now and then, when I listlessly visited my loaded barrels with the swivel ramrods, or drew a sweet, musical click from my English firelocks, it seemed to me that I exercised a slight and gentle influence on the debate.
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