Note 3 — AN UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY OF THE MARINE. (continued 3)

“The change proposed here, of reducing the quantity of powder in all ship guns to one-third of the weight of the bullet, has for some time past been practised by the French in a much severer service, where the encreasing the velocity of the bullet could not at any time diminish its effect; the service I mean is battering in breach. For I learn, that of late years all their breaches, in the different sieges they have undertaken, have been made with this very charge, that is, their twenty four-pounders have been loaded with eight pounds of powder, and they have found, that though the penetration of the bullet is less with this charge than with a larger one, yet the other conveniences attending this smaller charge, are more than, sufficient to balance that particular.

“And here I must observe, that there have not been wanting persons of considerable name, who have asserted that the velocity of a twenty-four pound bullet was really greater with eight pounds of powder than with any large quantity, founding their opinion on the ridiculous persuasion, that whatever quantity was put in, no more than eight pounds of it took fire; but this supposition is destroyed by their own experiments, and their own reasonings and later experiments, with greater attention, put it beyond all doubt, that to the larger charge (at least as far as twenty pounds of powder) there corresponds a greater velocity.