Such were the circumstances in which the carronade first came into use. And the following advertisement, appearing in Edinburgh shortly afterwards, sufficiently explains the incentive for exploiting the new type of ordnance, and the reason of its popularity among shipowners, passengers and crews. “To sail March 5, 1779, the _Glasgow_, Robert Paterson master, mounting fourteen twelve-pounders, and men answerable.... N.B.--The Carron vessels are fitted out in the most complete manner for defence at a very considerable expense, and are well provided with small arms. All mariners, recruiting parties, soldiers upon furlow, and all other steerage passengers who have been accustomed to the use of fire-arms, and who will engage in defending themselves, will be accommodated with their passage to and from London, upon satisfying the masters for their provisions, which in no instance shall exceed 10s. 6d. sterling. The Carron vessels sail regularly as usual, without waiting for the convoy.” The carronade was a very short, light, carriage gun of relatively large bore, made to take a standard size of long-gun shot and project it, by means of a small charge of powder, against an enemy at close range. Its proprietors soon found a market for the produce of their foundry, not only for merchant ships but for men-of-war. The reputation of the new ordnance quickly spread; carronades found a place almost immediately among the orthodox armament of the greater number of our fighting ships; and kept their place till, after a chequered career of half a century, during which they contributed both to victory and to defeat, they were finally discarded from the sea service. The story of the carronade begins some little time before the meeting of the Carron board in the year 1778. It will be remembered that in 1747 Mr. Benjamin Robins had advocated, in a much-talked-of paper, an increase in the calibre of warships’ guns at the expense of their ranging power, and that in support of his argument he had drawn attention to two features of ship actions--first, that the great majority of duels were fought at close quarters; secondly, that the destructive effect of a cannon-ball against an enemy’s hull depended largely on the external dimensions of the ball, the larger of two balls producing an effect altogether out of proportion to the mere difference in size.