This relates to the year 1647; but, notwithstanding the obvious advantage of the contrivance, it appears for a time to have been utterly neglected. Thus, in the "Mareschal de Bataille," of Lostelneau, which was published in the same year, 1647, we find no mention of the bayonet, and the musketeers are uniformly armed with swords.[1]
More than twenty years afterwards, the invention mentioned by Puysegur appears to have been revived. Sir James Turner, writing in the year 1670-71, thus recommends its adoption: "And, indeed, when musketeers have spent their powder, and come to blows, the butt-end of their musket may do an enemy more hurt than these despicable swords which most musketeers wear at their sides. In such medleys, knives whose blades are one foot long, made both for cutting and thrusting (the haft being made to fill the bore of the musket), will do more execution than either sword or butt of musket."[2]
In a treatise on "English Military Discipline," published by Robert Harford in 1680, the author observes: "The bayonet is much of the same length as the poniard [12 or 13 inches]; it hath neither guard nor handle, but onely a haft of wood, eight or nine inches long. The blade is sharp-pointed and two-edged, a foot in length, and a large inch in breadth. The bayonet is very useful to dragoons, fusiliers, and souldiers that are often commanded out on parties; because that, when they have fired their discharges, and want powder and shot, they put the haft of it into the mouth of the barrel of their pieces, and defend themselves therewith, as well as with a partizan." (p. 13.) "We remark also," says he, "that except on the occasions of which I am about to speak (viz., in field engagements), the pike-men are altogether useless, not being eligible for advanced posts, where, in order to give the alarm, it is necessary to make a noise." He further observes, "that in the attack and assault of places, soldiers should be armed with weapons easy to be handled, and which make a great noise, the effect of which is to intimidate those who are attacked." "These reasons," he adds, "and many others have led to the giving this year, to some musqueteers, bayonets to fix in the muzzles of their pieces when attacked by cavalry, thus having the effect of pikes, the use of which will, ere long, no doubt, be abandoned."
To the foregoing contemporary notices of the bayonet and its application may may be added the following: "Bayonette (f.), a dagger, or knife dagger-like, such
