Nor were the Americans inclined to view the shell gun with much favour; remembering, doubtless, what they owed to their long and powerful guns when they were opposed to our light guns and carronades in the war of ’12 and ’13. America was more cautious even than this country. But in ’41 the 8-inch shell gun appeared in American ships as an auxiliary to the long guns: four or so on each gun deck. And four years later the types of guns in their ships were limited to 8-inch shell guns, in combination with 32-pounder long guns of various patterns; in fact, their system of armament was assimilated to that of the French and British. Whatever the relative value of shell and solid shot might be, experience showed that increase in size favoured the former. Though medium-sized solid shot might be more efficient than medium-sized shells, yet it was widely accepted that large solid shot would probably be of less value than large shell. Strong tendencies were at work, making for such increase in the size of artillery. It was in 1837 that a writer already quoted showed the direction in which the arguments of M. Paixhans were leading. Citing Sir Howard Douglas on the advantages of large calibre and the inefficiency of random broadsides, Captain Simmons put forward the argument that, if these statements were accepted, it followed that all ships of war should be armed with a few long guns of the maximum calibre and giving the maximum muzzle energy which the ship could safely carry, with other guns on other decks of the same calibre but of varying weight and range. “Instead of determining the armament of a ship from the length of her decks and crowding as many guns together as possible; determining the number by the extent of the battery, and subjecting their nature to their number--making, in fact, the weight and type of gun depend, not on the service demanded, but on the quotient arising from dividing the total deck-weight by the number, previously fixed on; it might be safer to place on board a few of the most powerful guns which her construction would admit, and then regulate the total number carried by their aggregate weight--making the _number_ and not the _nature_ of the guns depend on what is inevitably fixed: the capacity of the vessel?” The English writer went farther than M. Paixhans had gone. His argument foreshadowed the evolution which was so largely influenced by the coming of the steam vessel, with its large paddle-wheels and small crew, and with its deck space necessitating the concentration of its armament into a few guns of the largest calibre; it foreshadowed the supersession of the broadside by the pivot gun, and the enormous expansion in the size of ordnance which took place after the Crimean War. * * * * *