A PEICE OF ORDINANCE OR CANNON
Year: 1741

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
GILBERT HADLEY, of the City of Bristol, Gunsmith, send greeting.
WHEREAS our Sovereign Lord George the Second, King of Great
Britain, and so forth, hath been pleased by His Letters Patents, passed
under His Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Fourth day of June, in the fourteenth year of His reign, to give
and grant unto me, the said Gilbert Hadley, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, the sole benefit of making, useing, exercising, and
vending of my new Invention of "A PEICE OF ORDINANCE OR CANNON,"
and to have and enjoy the whole profit and advantage ariseing there-
from, for and during the term of fourteen years, in which said Letters
Patent there is (amongst other things) therein contained a provisoe to
the effect following (that is to say):
That if I, the said Gilbert Hadley, shall not particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal,
and cause the same to be inrolled in the High Court of Chancery
within four kalender months next after the date of the said Letters

page_text: Patents, that then the said Letters Patents to become void, anything
therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding, as in and by the
same recited Letters Patents (relation thereunto being had) may more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YEE, that I, the said Gilbert Hadley, in obedience to
and in pursuance of the said provisoc in the said recited Letters Patents
contained, do by this instrument under my hand and seal describe and
ascertain the nature of my said new Invention, and the manner of
performing the same, to be as follows (to witt): ..
The said new invented ordinance or cannon itself is made of brass,
but may be made of brass, iron, copper, or mixed mettle, near the same
shape of other cannons, and of any size in bigness or length, but the
bore or hollow part of this new invented cannon is quite through the
same from one end to the other, and open at both ends. There is a
hole athwart or across the cannon towards the breetch or hinder part
thereof; there is a touch-hole for fircing it off on the top part of the
cannon; there is a pin or plugg fitted to be drove into the said thwart
hole on its being charged, before it be fired off, or otherwise, there is a
rowler fitted to turn in the said thwart or cross hole, which rowler
hath a hole through athwart it of the same size in diamiter as the
bore of the cannon, and the rowler is placed so as that the said hole
answers the bore, and through which hole the charge in charging the
cannon enters, and before the cannon be fired off, the rowler being
turned about a quarter part round, becomes a full stopper of the bore
between the charge in and the breetch of the cannon. There are also
two small holes almost on the top of the cannon, which serves to let in
oyle for the more casier driving in or out of the said pin or plugg, or
turning the said rowler. This new invented cannon is to be discharged
or fired off by primeing at the touch-hole, as other cannon usually are.
But the charging this cannon must be in manner following (to wit):
The gunpowder and ball or shot must be put into the bore of the
cannon at the brectch or hinder part thereof, which being done, the
said pin or plugg being drove or put into the said thwart or cross-hole,
or if the said rowler, being so fitted there, being turned as aforesaid, on
the cannons being fired off, the said pin or plugg or rowller will prevent

page_text: the charge from forceing its way backwards at the breetch or hinder part
of the said cannon, which said new invented ordinance or cannon may,
by the assistance of three men only, be fired off eight or ten times in
a minute.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the
Twenty-ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord One
thousand seven hundred and forty-one.
AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that the Nine-and-twentieth day of
September, in the fifteenth year of the reign of King George the
Second, the aforesaid Gilbert Hadley came before our said Lord the
King, in His Chancery, and acknowledged the discription aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above
written. And also the discription aforesaid was stamp'd according to
the tenor of the Statute made in in the sixth year of the reign of the late
King and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth,