An early mention of the hand-gun is that of Juvenal des Ursins, who tells us, under the year 1414, that they were used at the siege of Arras. ~Siege of Lucca 1430.~ ~Said to have been invented in Italy.~ Billius, a learned and noble Milanese, who lived at the time, says that hand-guns were first used at the siege of Lucca, in 1430. The Florentines were provided with artillery, which, by the force of gunpowder, discharged large stones, but the Luccquese perceiving that they did very little execution, came at last to despise them, and every day renewed their sallies to the great slaughter of their enemies, by the help of _small fire-arms_, to which the Florentines were strangers, and which before this time were not known in Italy. Billius explains this by saying, “That besides darts and balistas for arrows, they invented a new kind of weapon. They carried in their hand a club, a cubit and a half long, to which were affixed iron barrels. These they filled with sulphur and nitre, and by the power of fire, iron balls were thus ejected.” (Plate 19, fig. 1 and 10). ~Scorpion.~ About this time the scorpion (afterwards a piece of ordnance) was a tube for firing gunpowder, held in the hand, and called by the English, hand-cannon, and also hand-culverines. ~Made of brass.~ From a roll of purchases for Holy Island 1446 is,--“bought 11 hand gunnes de ere,” from whence we learn that they were made of brass. ~Edward IV.~ ~Harquebus invented.~ ~Stock, &c., from cross-bow.~ ~Match-lock. 1478.~ Hand-guns, or hand-cannons were used in the early part of the reign of Edward IV., and towards the close of it, we learn from Philip de Comines, that the harquebus was invented; this seems to have been an improvement on the hand-gun. The Latin word used for this weapon was arcusbusus, evidently derived from the Italian, arca-bouza, a bow with a tube or hole; to that people, therefore, are we to ascribe the application of the stock and trigger in imitation of the cross-bow. Hitherto the match had been applied by the hand to the touch-hole, but the trigger of the arbalest suggested the idea of one to catch into a cock, which having a slit in it, might hold the match, and by the motion of the trigger be brought down on a pan which held the priming, the touch-hole being no longer at the top but at the side. (Plate 19, fig. 9). ~Hand-gun improvements.~ ~Sighted.~ The hand-gun was _cast_ in brass, and, as a tube, was of greater length than the hand cannon; a flat piece of brass, made to turn upon a pin, covered the pan which contained the powder; it had also a piece of brass fixed on the breech, and perforated to ensure the aim. ~Hand-guns in England 1471.~ ~Made in England, 1474.~