At first mechanical difficulties occurred in the fitting of the new carronade mountings which, though not due to any defect inherent in the equipments, nevertheless placed them under suspicion in certain quarters. Though the prototype had trunnions like a gun, the carronades afterwards cast were attached by lugs to wooden slides which recoiled on slotted carriages pivoted to the ship’s side timbers, the slide being secured to the carriage by a vertical bolt which passed down through the slot. The recoil was limited by breechings; but as these stretched continuously the bolt eventually brought up with a blow against the end of the slot in the carriage: the bolt broke, and the carronade was disabled. This happened at Praya Bay, where the carronades broke their beds, owing to slack breechings, after a few rounds. Captains complained, too, that the fire of the carronades was a danger to the shrouds and rigging. [Illustration: A CARRONADE] In spite of these views the popularity of the new ordnance increased so rapidly that in January, 1781, there were, according to the historian James, 429 ships in the royal navy which mounted carronades. On the merits of these weapons opinion was still very much divided. The board of ordnance was against their adoption; the navy board gave them a mild approval. In practice considerable discretion appears to have been granted to the commanders of ships in deciding what armament they should actually carry.[88] But the uncertainty of official opinion gave rise to a surprising anomaly: _the carronade, although officially countenanced, was not recognized as part of the orthodox armament of a ship_. What was the cause of this is not now clear. It has been said in explanation, that the carronade formed too fluctuating a basis on which to rate a ship’s force; that a long-gun basis afforded a key to the stores and complement of a ship, whereas carronades had little effect on either complement or stores; or that it may have been merely inertia on the part of the navy board. Whatever the cause, the ignoring of the carronade, in all official quotations of ships’ armaments, led to great uncertainty and confusion in estimating the relative force of our own and other navies, to suggestions of deception on the part of antagonists, to the bickering of historians and the bewilderment of the respective peoples. This extraordinary circumstance, that carronades with all their alleged advantages were not thought worthy to be ranked among the long guns of a ship, is commented on at length by James. “Whether,” he says, “they equalled in calibre the heaviest of these guns, added to their number a full third, or to their power a full half, still they remained as mere a blank in the ship’s nominal, or rated force, as the muskets in the arm-chest. On the other hand, the addition of a single pair of guns of the old construction, to a ship’s armament, removed her at once to a higher class and gave her, how novel