under the command of Capt. Gough. A salvo from the battery announced the Duke’s arrival and the men-at-arms within the enclosure drew up to receive him. About 70 members of the 4th Cinque Ports Artillery Corps were present under the command of Capt-Commandant Harcourt, Capt. Scrivens and Lieut. Hales. In the course of the proceedings, Capt Harcourt accepted an invitation from Col. Mitchell to place some of the volunteers at the guns with the Royal Artillerymen, who received their volunteer brothers-in arms, literally with open hands and great cordiality, afterwards giving them the little instruction which a difference in the kind of gun and tackling was necessary. The volunteers who assisted at the guns Sergeants Payne, Gant, Ayles, Starkey, How and Mackay; Corporals Murray and Tutt; Bombardiers Bonniwell, Polhill, Walter, and Addis; Gunners Davies, Wingfield, Thwaites, Smith, Bovis, Dowsett, Foukes, Brazier, Grady, Breach, Jones, Monk, J. B. Jones, Foord, Pickerden, Hilder, Morris, Tutt, Hutchings and Phillips. The way our local men did their work was praised by the Regulars, and greatly so by the London Press. They were also thanked at the close by Col. Cuppage for their services. Several of the Battle Rifles and some of the Ore Artillery were also present in uniforms. The Artillery Brass band and the Rifles fife-and-drum band played at intervals on the ground, and alternately during a march of seven or eight mules home. Booths were erected , and with as good a supply of food and drink as was thought to be required but such were the wants of the great crowd of sightseers that they had to return to their homes with their cravings unsatisfied.
As before stated, the main object of the experiment was to ascertain the different effects of the Armstrongs and Smooth-bores, the operations and results of which latter were watched with great apparent insterest(sic), especially by some Russian officers who were present, with keen eyes and many enquiries. The Saturday’s cannonading was little more than preliminary, but on Monday it went on vigorously until three o’clock, when his Royal Highness went to lunch. At that time 65 charges of shot and shell had been directed against the tower, of which number only 13 missed the object, and these comparatively few misses were attributed by the gunners to some intermittent breezes. The amount of destruction, however, was not at all commensurate with the continued flight of missiles and the loud reports at the cannon’s mouth and only a little less loud at the contact. The result of the bombardment clearly showed the inferior power of smooth-bore guns at long ranges as compared with the Armstrong pattern. At Eastbourne (see page 12) the tower was destroyed with less than 50 discharges from the 100lb. Armstrong, and presented at the termination of firing only a mass of ruins. But the injury to the tower near Bexhill was only -
