That a
proper quantity of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass or
iron, according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead with
such violence and speed as nothing was able to sustain its force. That
the largest balls thus discharged would not only destroy whole ranks of
an army at once, but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink
down ships with a thousand men in each to the bottom of the sea; and,
when linked together by a chain, would cut through masts and rigging,
divide hundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all waste before them.
That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and
discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which
would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw
splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near.
That I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I
understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workman
how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in
his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to be above a hundred
feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper
quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the
strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole
metropolis if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute commands.
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