he related that they were found on board the _Spartiate_, one of the ships captured on the first of August!”[103] Continuous trials were carried out in France with shells fired from guns. In 1798, following a series of successful experiments, trials were prosecuted at Meudon by a special commission, who caused 24-and 36-pound shells to be fired at a target representing a ship-of-the-line, at ranges of 400 and 600 yards. The results were impressive, and the report rendered to Bonaparte such as to confirm his personal conviction in the value of shell fire. Less than a year later, we may note in passing, the Consul was himself the target of shell fire: being subjected, at the siege of Acre, to the unpleasant attentions of a 68-pounder carronade from the English fleet. In 1804, with the avowed object of keeping our cruisers at a distance, he had long howitzers cast and placed for the defence of Toulon and other ports. And hardly a year passed but some trial was made of horizontal fire of shells from guns and mortars. Of the two great maritime powers, Britain had contributed more, perhaps, towards the building up by actual practice of the system of artillery which was shortly to come into vogue. Shell fire from mortars had been used with far more effect by her forces than by those of her great enemy. The invention of the carronade was in itself almost a solution; and, though it did not lead directly to the shell gun, yet it undoubtedly induced the weapon which most strongly resembled it: the medium ship-gun, as designed by Congreve and Blomefield, which was something between the carronade and the long gun, and which for a time was mounted in our two-decked ships for the purpose of preserving unity of calibre. But the French, free from the bias against change of method and material which operated in this country, seized on the possibilities of existing elements, and combined them in such a way as to form a complete solution of the shell-fire problem. To General Paixhans, the eminent officer of artillery, the credit for this solution is undoubtedly due. § The experiments of M. Paixhans, carried out in order to confirm the theories on which his new system was founded, extended over several years and resulted in the publication of two books--the _Nouvelle Force Maritime et Artillerie_, 1822, and _Expériences faites sur une Arme Nouvelle_, 1825. In these works[104] the author developed in detail the scheme of ship armament which was to win adoption, in the course of time, in the French navy; whereby our own authorities were also gradually forced to abandon methods and standards of force by which the British navy had grown great. Two principles formed the basis of this scheme:--(1) unity of calibre, embodying the maximum simplification of means; (2) shell fire, embodying the maximum augmentation of effect.