cannon himself.

"Knock away the quoin, entirely;" he said to the captain of the gun, when
he had got the range; "now mind her when she lifts, forward; keep the ship
steady, Sir--fire!"

Those gentleman 'who live at home at ease,' are often surprised to read
of combats, in which so much powder, and hundreds and even thousands of
shot, are expended, with so little loss of human life; while a struggle on
the land, of less duration, and seemingly of less obstinacy, shall sweep
away a multitude. The secret of the difference lies in the uncertainty of
aim, on an element as restless as the sea. The largest ship is rarely
quite motionless, when on the open ocean; and it is not necessary to tell
the reader, that the smallest variation in the direction of a gun at its
muzzle, becomes magnified to many yards at the distance of a few hundred
feet. Marine gunnery has no little resemblance to the skill of the fowler;
since a calculation for a change in the position of the object must
commonly be made in both cases, with the additional embarrassment on the
part of the seaman, of an allowance for a complicated movement in the
piece itself.

How far the gun of the Coquette was subject to the influence of these
causes, or how far the desire of her captain to protect those whom he
believed to be on board the brigantine, had an effect on the direction
taken by its shot, will probably never be known. It is certain, however,
that when the stream of fire, followed by its curling cloud, had gushed
out upon the water, fifty eyes sought in vain to trace the course of the
iron messenger among the sails and rigging of the Water-Witch. The
symmetry of her beautiful rig was undisturbed, and the unconscious fabric
still glided over the waves, with its customary ease and velocity. Ludlow