f the piece, which had
hitherto, with the Brunswick rifle, with its “belted ball,” and a range
of about 400 yards, been impossible. This began to be used in 1851.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 had introduced to the world the “Colt’s
Revolver.” As far back as 1842 the percussion lock, invented in 1807,
had taken the place of the Brown Bess, so called from the brown
tint given to the barrel, as distinct from the bright iron barrels
of foreign muskets; but it is stated that the duke was by no means
favourable to the supersession of the flint-lock by the chemically
charged cap. Judging from this, the actual armament of the whole army
with the English model of the Minié (the “Enfield” rifle of 1855),
which carried a bullet weighing sixteen to the pound, and of which a
man could only carry sixty rounds of ammunition, would have been to him
“Anathema Maranatha.” Similarly, the breech-loader had been introduced
to Napoleon in 1809, but the weapon, being probably imperfect, met
with little favour; none the less, the Prussians had already adopted,
by 1841, the breech-loading needle gun. But General Anson, then “Clerk
of the Ordnance,” had no fancy for such new-fangled ideas, a feeling
shared fully, by all accounts, with the Commander-in-Chief, who was
always irascible with inventors and their inventions. He did not
believe we “ought hastily to adopt any of these improvements”; and, as
to rifles, “it was ridiculous to suppose that two armies could fight
at a distance of 500 or 600 yards!” Even the Secretary of State for
War, afterwards Lord Panmure, stated that the weapons, that is, the
percussion musket, “were better than all the inventions that could be
discovered.” Certes, he lived long enough to be “sorry he spoke,” for
of the musket he so be-praised, it was officially declared, in 1846,
that “fire should never be opened beyond 150 yards, and certainly not
exceeding 200 yards,” for “at this distance half the number of shots
missed the target, measuring 11 feet 6 inches, and at