The broadside cannon pointed through square portholes cut in the ship's sides. The ports were fitted with heavy wooden lids which could be tightly closed when necessary. In bad weather, the lower-deck gun ports could not be opened without danger of swamping the ship. Sometimes, when the lower-deck guns were fought in a gale, the men stood knee deep in water. In action the guns were "run out" till their muzzles were well outside the port, so that the flashes might not set the ship's side on fire. The shock of the discharge made them recoil into a position in which they could be reloaded. The guns were run out by means of side tackles. They were kept from recoiling too far by strong ropes called breechings. When not in use, and not likely to be used, they were "housed," or so arranged that their muzzles could be lashed firmly to the ship's side. In a sea way, when the ship rolled very badly, there was danger of the guns breaking loose and rolling this way and that till they had knocked the ship's side out. To prevent this happening, clamps of wood were screwed behind the wheels of the gun-carriages, and extra breechings were rove, whenever bad weather threatened. The great weight of the rows of cannon put a severe strain upon the upper works of the ship. In bad weather, during excessive rolling, this strain was often great enough to open the seams in the ship's sides. To prevent this, and other costly damage, it was the custom to keep the big men-of-war in harbour from October until the Spring. In the {ix} smaller vessels the strain was made less by striking down some of the guns into the hold. The guns were fired by the application of a slow-match to the priming powder in the touch-holes. The slow-matches were twisted round wooden forks called linstocks. After firing, when the guns had recoiled, their bores were scraped with scrapers called "worms" to remove scraps of burning wad or cartridge. They were then sponged out with a wet sponge, and charged by the ramming home of fresh cartridges, wads, and balls. A gun's crew numbered from four to twelve men, according to the size of the piece. When a gun was trained aft or forward, to bear on an object before or abaft the beam, the gun's crew hove it about with crows and handspikes.