of 1545, when about two hundred ships were hotly engaged at close quarters for two hours, there were not less than three hundred cannon-shot fired on both sides. Du Bellay, as a military contemporary, no doubt wrote what was quite true;[1] but he probably included only the shots thrown from the heavier guns engaged, paid no attention to the fire of light pieces. Still, the expenditure
A GENOESE CARRACK.
(From Charnock, who says that it is copied from an original drawing made in 1452.)
was remarkably small, and it cannot have permitted the heaviest guns to be discharged more than twice or thrice apiece. The seamen of the period had not, however, begun to depend exclusively, nor even chiefly, upon firearms as their weapons of offence, and this abundantly appears from the fact that, among the stores of the Henry Grace à Dieu were 500 bows of yew, ten gross of bow-
- ↑ Though another contemporary says that not less than 300 guns were engaged.
