_When first I gave my thoughts to make Guns shoot often, I thought there had been but one only exquisite way inventible, yet by several trials and much charge I have perfectly tried all these._ [_For Musquettoons on horseback._] The remark which forms a postscript to this article, naturally leads to the conclusion that the improvements in guns were among the later inventions of the Marquis, perhaps about or after 1641, when his own active services promised soon to be required in the field. His improved firearms are chiefly recommended for effecting rapid firing. It may have been one of the results of his experiments, that Caspar Kaltoff became engaged at Vauxhall in such manufactures for the government. The Marquis would obtain little assistance from Vegetius, although he would find some extraordinary applications of “Mirabilis Machina.” We see there the “Tormentum,” with its great stone ball, and fire issuing from muzzle and touch-hole, manipulated after an extraordinary fashion, bristling down the sides of an angular frame; whirled round on a circular table like a capstan; eight placed crosswise; or two placed breech to breech, one horizontal, the other vertical, to be fired from behind a goodly target. But the Marquis went far beyond these ancient military weapons, for gunpowder was then beginning to be understood and applied with a degree of effect that startled and surprised the enemy, while it only disgusted the humane portion of our forefathers of that day, who, in case of dire necessity alone, favoured the use of balista, catapulta, bows, and pikes, in the conduct of military and naval engagements. Musketoons were the same as the blunderbuss, being of large bore to fire with a charge of twenty or more pistol bullets, of from seven to seven and a half ounces of lead, among a multitude, to disperse the crowd. The arms offensive and defensive of the old militia, described by Grose, in his “Military Antiquities,” 1801, as applying to a trooper, with the furniture for his horse, were as follows:--“The defensive armour, a breast, back, and pot (or scull cap without vizor or bever), pistol proof; the offensive arms, a sword, and a case of _pistols_, the barrels not under 14 inches in length; the furniture for the horse, a great saddle, or pad, with burs and straps for affixing the holsters, a bit and bridle, with a pectoral and crupper: for the foot, a _musketeer_ had a _musket_, the barrel, not under three feet in length, and the guage of the bore for 12 bullets to the pound, a collar of bandileers, with a sword.” (Vol. 1.) Abraham Hill, a Fellow of the Royal Society, patented, 3rd of March, 1664, among other inventions, one for guns and pistols, with several devices for the speedier and more effectual discharge of them; also a new kind of powder horn. We shall close these observations on improvements in firearms with the following miscellaneous illustrations respecting the several kinds then in use.