Interesting gun, only one little problem...

The tag on this piece states that it is a Spanish swivel cannon. The only problem I see is that it isn’t Spanish-made. I can state that with confidence because I have many books on Spanish artillery and there’s nothing like this in them. If this were a Spanish Navy swivel gun it would most certainly be covered in the exhaustive study published recently by the Spanish government, and the small Spanish Navy guns in the book are very different, and none have a bore as small as 2 1/2 inches, nor are any shorter overall than about 30 inches, nor lighter than about 120 lbs.

The historical info given regarding the ship’s capture etc. appears to be accurate, but since this isn’t a Spanish swivel gun to begin with, I’m not sure where that leaves us.

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/or...-from-the-treasure-ship-santa-brigida-in-1799

 

Maybe the Spanish swiped it off someone else and put it into service? Or didn't they do that? By the 1790s the Spanish government wasn't as flush as it once was, and I can see them cutting a few corners.

 

that sounds reasonable......

 

Good question. But in this case I’d think not, biggest problem being that it was a different caliber from anything Spain used. That would have been prohibitive for them. They had two royal cannon foundries, Barcelona and Seville, that were casting hundreds of bronze cannons a year at that time, and they still had access to more “cheap” copper and tin, from their colonies, than they could use. The book “Sevilla-Y La Real Fundicion De Canones (where’s that n-ya squiggle again?)” by Enrique de la Vega, makes the prodigious Spanish cannon production in that period pretty clear.

 

There goes that theory. Maybe it was on the ship as part of a load of scrap metal.(LOL)

 

The purpose of a swivel gun was mainly anti-personnel, a handful of musket balls fired at people preparing to board or actually boarding would be more effective shotgun style than firing one ball.

So no need for special ammo, musket balls would be my choice of laod for that weapon.

 

Here’s a page from the book showing Seville’s production of bronze cannons and mortar carriages from 1773-1795. I highlighted the pieces that could be used as shipboard swivel guns. Not shown are cannons cast at Barcelona, which might be a similar number.

 

Correct, usually known as “canister.” This was still fixed ammunition, while I can load a handful of balls into a small cannon these days, in most any military service the round was made up in an Arsenal beforehand, correct weight of powder, correct weight of balls, proper hardwood sabot, and most important, correct diameter for the weapon intended, and all parts fastened together.

I made a video of shooting an antique swivel gun with canister, kind of forgot about need for a sabot, we weold have gotten better penetration in the target if we had thought it through better.

 

I take your point about offical swivel gun procedure, but if I were a captain who found a handy swivel gun, I'd just mount the thing, load it with powder, wad, balls and wad and be ready to use it. The Bureau of Ordnance might not approve, but they are an ocean away and the pirates are just over the horizon.
Your tests were somewhat casual, you do not mention range or dipersion at that range, but If I were the gunner, I'd want as loose a pattern as possible, there is no point hitting one man 6 times, when you might have hit six men once.

 

The very thin silver plate is suspicious to me. Captured bronze cannons, if someone thinks to mark that info on the cannon, will have the text engraved right into the bronze surface of the cannon. The silver plate method is often used to attach important text to small arms, but not cannons, at least not that I’ve seen. I’d really like to see what’s under that plate.

Other aspects of the plate I don’t like:

“a Spanish Swivel Cannon...”

No cannon capture inscription I’ve seen bothers to describe the type and nationality of the item, they just state “Captured by (name) on (date) at (place.). Another odd part of the text is “and the seamen.” I’ve never seen a capture inscription that shares credit like that. Back then ship’s crewmen who weren’t officers were regarded as necessary lowlifes, not fully human, and although they sometimes received a share of the prize money, if there was any, there was usually no official recognition of their efforts.

 

Info here on small Spanish naval guns shows there was a 2-pounder, and in fact there’s an example in our family collection that I’d forgotten. However it is huge compared to the piece under discussion. In the table, bore diameter and barrel length are in cm, and barrel weight (peso) is in Kg.

 

At this point I’m thinking it is a 19th C. Line-throwing gun of unknown origin. 2.5” is a very common line-throwing gun bore size. Come to think of it, it could even be a Spanish line-throwing gun, of which I’ve never seen an example, but they could exist. However, no country produced line-throwing cannons or mortars until the early 19th. C.