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My station at the batteries was at one of the thirty-two-pound carronades, on the starboard side of the quarter-deck.[1]

——­ [Footnote-1] For the benefit of a Quaker reader here and there, a word or two in explanation of a carronade may not be amiss.  The carronade is a gun comparatively short and light for its calibre.  A carronade throwing a thirty-two-pound shot weighs considerably less than a long-gun only throwing a twenty-four-pound shot.  It further differs from a long-gun, in working with a joint and bolt underneath, instead of the short arms or trunnions at the sides.  Its carriage, likewise, is quite different from that of a long-gun, having a sort of sliding apparatus, something like an extension dining-table; the goose on it, however, is a tough one, and villainously stuffed with most indigestible dumplings.  Point-blank, the range of a carronade does not exceed one hundred and fifty yards, much less than the range of a long-gun.  When of large calibre, however, it throws within that limit, Paixhan shot, all manner of shells and combustibles, with great effect, being a very destructive engine at close quarters.  This piece is now very generally found mounted in the batteries of the English and American navies.  The quarter-deck armaments of most modern frigates wholly consist of carronades.  The name is derived from the village of Carron, in Scotland, at whose celebrated founderies this iron Attila was first cast.

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I did not fancy this station at all; for it is well known on shipboard that, in time of action, the quarter-deck is one of the most dangerous posts of a man-of-war.  The reason is, that the officers of the highest rank are there stationed; and the enemy have an ungentlemanly way of target-shooting at their buttons.  If we should chance to engage a ship, then, who could tell but some bungling small-arm marks-man in the enemy’s tops might put a bullet through me instead of the Commodore?  If they hit him, no doubt he would not feel it much, for he was used to that sort of thing, and, indeed, had a bullet in him already.  Whereas, I was altogether unaccustomed to having blue pills playing round my head in such an indiscriminate way.  Besides, ours was a flag-ship; and every one knows what a peculiarly dangerous predicament the quarter-deck of Nelson’s flag-ship was in at the battle of Trafalgar; how the lofty tops of the enemy were full of soldiers, peppering away at the English Admiral and his officers.  Many a poor sailor, at the guns of that quarter-deck, must have received a bullet intended for some wearer of an epaulet.