Page 78 - Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia, 1629

BA T 407 (SCALE 1:4)
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SMALL-ARMS AND ACCOUTREMENTS Blunderbuss
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'Three examples of an unusual type of blunderbuss were found on the site, BA T407, BA T408 and BA T3261. The guns have a parallel bore, made-up ofcopper sheeting rolled into a tube 44 mm in diameter and 830 mm long, with a tapered chamber at the breech made of a type of bronze, The breech has a screw-thread to allow for some form of iron block to be attached, mther similar to the composite gun armngement (see above). There is no evidence of a touch-hole in the breech, so it was presuma- bly fired in some way through the breech block screw. A small back-sight was mounted at the breech end of the tube, Thecoppersheetingwasbrazedintoa tube with alap- jointontheventralsurface.Thebreechblockwassoldered and pinned in place.
Samples ofall four metals were taken and qualitatively analysed with a scanning electron microscope fitted with EDAX facilities. The tube was shown to be made of pure copper, with no other metals detectable (better than 99% pure Cu). The bronze-like breech block was shown to be a copper-based alloy with high levels of lead and small amountsofantimonyand, thus,isnotatruebronze.DrNeil North, who analysed the metals, commented that the composition was quite unusual; the only advantage of using this alloy would be that it would be easy to machine; but at the same time, it would suffer from low strength and have a low melting-point The lead solder or filler was shown to be a high-lead alloy with small and approxi- mately equal amounts of copper and nickel, and traces of tin and antimony. The brazing was shown to be a typical single-phase brass, with only copper and about 20% zinc present The author is grateful to Dr NeiJ North, then Head oftheDepartmentofMaterialsConservationandRestora-
tion of the Western Australian Maritime Museum, for the analysis and notes on the metallurgy.
It is clear that these guns were a type of matchlock blunderbuss. A similar gun, illustrated in Puype (1976: 16) and Kistet al. (1974:No.17 & 18), is located in Skokloster Castle, Sweden, and is of Dutch origin, dating from the second quarter of the 17th century. The guns were used to fife pyrotechnic fife-bails or fire arrows such as shown in Fig. 35, taken from Galschut (c.1692). The use of fife arrows is described in Simienowicz (1676:400): 'But if ever they [flIe-arrows] can be used to any very great purpose; it must certainly be in Sea-Fights, to set Fire to Enemy's Sailes and Rigging, and especially when they are
headed with sharp iron.' Smith (1627:54) states:
Or you may make a ball of wild-flte burn in the waler.....Jl is good eytber far &el'Vice on sea to bume the sails of shipps, or on land for disordering men in bauelltay being neere, for divers othermilitarie services, to have certaineshortmuskeLs of an inch or very neere an inchbore, out of which you may shooteyther chained bullets, or half a score pistoll bullets. or half a dozen harquebuz bullets at one shor; or you may shoot out the same fire-arrows made with strong shafts feathered with home or with common feathers. glewed &. boWld on with threed: when you are to shoot a flte arrow out of these peeces. you must not give the peece her full loading of powder, but rather '1/3 parts tbeROf, and then put a close wad
after the powder, and put in the arrow close to the wadde, ruing the same at the other end without the mouth of the
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