The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-10 00:00:00

WHITIVOR7H AND AB.IIS7BONG _RIFLE

GUNS.

Mr. Jos. Whitworth has addressed the following
letter to the editor of the Times :—Sir,—ln a letter
which appeared in the Times of Nov. 6, Sir W.
Armstrong, while commenting on the late trial of
our respective field guns near Shorncliffe,has made
some statements the tone of which I regret, and
which necessarily call for a reply.
With the arrangements at Shorneliffe I bad no-
thing whatever to do, except that I went there ex-
pecting to see my guns officially tried, and before
going I was unaware that any Armstrong guns were
to be fired on that occasion. Sir William animad-
verts strongly upon the account of the trials which
was quoted in the limes from the Army and Nary
Gazette, but he doe not point to any of the facts as
being incorrect, though he has, of course, every
facility for ascertaining their truth. It is necessary
to advert to this, because it might be inferred from
Sir William Armstrong's letter that the trials at
Shorncliffe were of a partial and one-sided cha-
racter; for he says, "It would seem that
-Whitworth and Armstrong field guns were fired
in the presence of Mr. Whitworth, Colonel
Boxer, and their friends," omitting to add what
was distinctly stated in the article quoted by you,
that the trials were really official, and " took place
in the presence of the Inspector .General of Artillery,
General Bloomfield, and a large staff of officers."
Among these were Colonel Cuppage, Colonel
Bingham, representing the Horse Guards, Colonel
Marriott, and other officers.

Sir William, without pointing out any errors,
expresses in general terms his doubts as to the
accuracy of the statements quoted in your paper,
observing that on other occasions different results
had been obtained with his guns. This i s possible
but I should ask whether in these instances the
trials were pubiic or private, and under what condi-
tions they took place. On various occasions public
trials of my guns have been made, and the actual
results of those trials were all published at the time.
It would be very satisfactory if Sir William would
point to rt sults obtained by him which he is ready to
compare a ith them ; for example, after the Arm-
strong 32-pounder gun gave a range of 9,175 yards,
I obtained with one of my small three-pounders a
range of 9,700 yards, and with a 12-pounder a range
of 10,200 yards. Again, my 70 pounder gave a range
of 3,000 yards at 5 deg., and a range of 5,000 yards
at 10 deg. Although Sir William undertook (as
stated in Parliament by the Minister of War, the
late Lord Herbert) to produce a gun expressly for
range, which should surpass mine (not mule ex-
pressly for range), I have never heard of his guns
having equalled the results given above.
When results such as these are openly published,
there are surely ample means for making a com-
parison, each gun being allowed to do all it can,
without their being fired actually side by side.
Why has not Sir William availed himself of this
mode of comparison, which was open to us both had
he so desired it ?

In his letter he now expresses his opinion that it
is "high time that a proper and systematic compa-
rison should be made between Mr. Whitworth's
guns and his." He therefore admits that no such
comparison has yet been made, though the Rifle
Ordnance Committee in 1858 decided in favour of
his gun and against mine. In a former communi-
cation I alluded in general terms to this subject, but
from comments made on my letter in your leading
article it appeared that my allusion did not convey
sufficient information.

It is therefore necessary plainly to state what
were the proceeding of the Rifle Ordnance Com-
mittee
with reference to the Armstrong gun and
mine, when they recommended the former to be
adopted for the service. I am now for the first
time enabled to give this explanation, having just
received the recently published report of the evi-
dence given before the Select Committee of the
House of Commons of last session. Its appendix
furnishes me, for the first time, with a copy of the
Ordnance Committee's report upon the Armstrong
gun and mine, and with a list of the members by
whom it was made. Among the most prominent
of those members were Sir W. Wiseman, now the
vice-president of the Ordnance Select Committee,
and the secretary, Capt. A. Noble, who afterwards
became a partner iu the Elswick Ordnance Co.
From the evidence taken by the House of Com..
mons, it appears that a programme of the trials of
the Armstrong gun proposed to be made in 1858,
was previously submitted to Sir William by the
Committee, and he consented to it, stipulating,
however, that he should be allowed to cooperate
personally or by his assistants. No such opportu-
nity was afforded to me, no programme was fur-
nished to me, nor was I even allowed to be present
at the trial of my own guns, which were brass
muzzle-loading guns, bored and rifled identically
with the 12-pounders recently tried at Shorncliffe.
I did not know what was the nature of the in-
tended trials nor their results. The Committee,
who might have communicated with me in
the same way that they did with Sir W.
Armstrong, omitted to do so; and more than that,
in a letter from the War-office they promised to visit
my works at Manchester, and I fully expected they
would come, before they decided what gun they
would recommend, but though they visited the
Elswick Works, they never came to mine.
It was to these circumstances I alluded when I
protested against being again referred to a commit-
tee some of whose members had already decided
against me, and who would necessarily see in the
success of my guns the condemnation of their pre-
I vious judgment. Though T object, and I think with
reason, to being subjected to the direction of a tri-
bunal so biassed, I accept readily Sir W. Arm-
strong's proposition to match his guns and projec-
tiles against my guns and projectiles.
To bring the matter to a direct issue, I would
propose to name two members, and that Sir William
should name t
wo, who, with a chairman chosen by
the four, shall form the tribunal of reference. What-
ever that tribunal shall agree upon as to time, place,
and nature of trial, and mode of arriving at a deci-