Friedrich Engels

Arquebus

Written between 11 July and 10 August 1857.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Vol. II]

Arquebus
(from the French arquebuse, sometimes incorrectly written “harquebuse”, and in English, especially on the Scottish border, corrupted into “hagbut” or “hackbut”) — the earliest form of the musket which became really serviceable in the field for military purposes. Already in 1485, at the battle of Bosworth, it was used under the name hand-cannon, which was nothing but a short iron cylinder, closed at one end as in a breech-loader and provided with a touch-hole; it was fastened to the extremity of a stout wooden stock resembling the handle of a spear or halberd. This hand-cannon or miniature cannon was loaded with chopped lead or small balls and coarse-grained powder, and fired by means of a match applied to the touch-hole. In this operation the weapon rested on the shoulder of the man in the front rank of a body of pikemen or halberdiers — and was aimed and fired by the soldier in the second rank by means of the handle, but of course without taking aim. Even earlier, at the battle of Agincourt, the English were, according to Hall’s Chronicle, armed “with fiery hand-cannons”. These ancient firearms, however, were so clumsy and slow in use that, despite their tremendous noise and unfamiliar appearance, they produced little or no effect. Although in the early years of the reign of Henry VIII the fire of the Spanish arquebusiers gained the victory at the battle of Pavia, the longbow still maintained itself as the superior weapon by virtue of its accuracy, its range, and its penetrating power; and even as late as the reign of Elizabeth, the longbow is spoken of as “the queen of weapons”, although she had musketeers in her army and supported Henry IV of France with a troop of mounted arquebusiers commanded by Colonel James, an ancestor of the well-known novelist <James, George Payne Rainsford>. During her reign this weapon was considerably improved, though it was still so long and unwieldy that it could only be fired from a forked rest, which was stuck into the ground in front of the marksman; this indispensable instrument was sometimes provided with a pike or halberd head, so that, when driven obliquely into the ground, it could also serve as a palisade. The barrels of these old pieces are extremely long, of very thick metal, generally with a small bore and sometimes already rifled, as in the case of the piece still preserved at Hamilton Palace in Scotland, with which Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh shot the Regent Murray in 1570. They were fired by means of a match, or slow-match, of prepared hemp, which was drawn through a hammer, as in a modern matchlock; the hammer, when released by pulling the trigger, struck the lighted match into the pan and discharged the piece. In due time the matchlock gave way to the wheellock, in which the flint was fixed above the pan, and a serrated wheel, set in rapid motion by a spring against its edge, sent a shower of sparks into the powder below. The wheellock was followed by the so-called snaphaunce. This was the first crude beginning of the flintlock, which was brought to such perfection by Joseph Manton and which has been finally superseded only within the last few years by the percussion cap; a quicker and more infallible ignition than the latter is difficult to imagine. The snaphaunce came into use for costly pistols, fowling-pieces, and choice musketoons during the English Civil Wars, but their rarity and high price prevented their general employment except as the weapons of noblemen and officers of rank, while the matchlock still remained the arm of the common soldiery. It is remarkable that from the invention of the improved arquebus down to the most recent times far less progress has been made, as regards the mere construction of the barrel and the exact flight of the ball, than might have been supposed. The difficulty of accurate aiming seems to have arisen solely from the defective method of firing, the clumsiness of the piece, and the extremely slow ignition, for it appears that many arquebus barrels, especially those of Spanish manufacture, shot with great accuracy and even extraordinary penetration at long distances, after they had been altered to the percussion principle, restocked, and properly balanced.