Repeating Swivel Gun

...; Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, 1819;¹¹HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 22/2/1819 N20. transferred to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-791

Seven-barrelled muzzle loading flintlock gun on a swivel with powder measure, primer and iron ramrod, mounted on a base.

The 14.8-mm calibre barrels are bundled together with brass straps, six outer barrels encircling the seventh, central barrel, and bolted with breech plugs onto the guard plate. The guard plate has a butt in the centre. The flintlock is placed to the left and is triggered with a lanyard. The spark from the flintlock enters the first barrel and is passed on to the other barrels through connecting channels. The gun works on the Roman candle principle: each barrel is loaded with seven charges and the bullets are pierced in order to pass the spark on to the charge behind them. Thus forty-nine bullets are fired in one volley, the bullets of each barrel fired in succession because of the time it takes for the powder to pass the spark on through the bullets. The iron ramrod has markings on the side to measure the position of the charges.

Repeating guns of this type were used by the United States Navy between 1814 and 1820 in the war against the British and, in the Mediterranean, against Barbary pirates. According to Obreen the design goes back to an invention by a American farmer in 1782.²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 791.

This particular gun was procured by the Dutch ambassador to the United States in 1819 and tested for the Dutch Navy by P. Bullot in Liège in 1820. The barrels were found to be of inferior quality and were replaced after the central one had exploded. Further inquiries concerning the safety and use of the gun in the American Navy resulted in its rejection by the Dutch authorities. Only one other gun of this type, but with longer barrels, is known to exist in the collection of the Musée Curtius in Liège.³³M. Lindsay, ‘La mitrailleuse à silex à 7 canons de Joseph C. Chambers, au Musée d’Armes de Liège’, _Le Musée d’Armes (de Liège) _3 (1975), no. 10, pp. 9-13, fig. 11.

The model is inscribed with a crowned T, the emblem of arms controller Johannes Lambertus Thomas, Liège.

J.C. Rijk, Generaal Rapport Z.M. Pallas, s.l. 1825, manuscript with 6 appendices in HSM, inv. no. NII (03144); J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 791; S.S. Robinson and M.L. Robinson, A History of Naval Tactics from 1530-1930: The Evolution of Tactical Maxims, Annapolis 1940, chapter 30; D.R. Baxter, Superimposed Load Firearms 1360-1860, Hong Kong 1966, p. 154; J.J. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. 2, London 1965, p. 277; R.E. Gardner, Small Arms Makers: A Directory of Fabricators of Firearms, Edged Weapons, Crossbows and Polearms, New York 1968; L. Guttridge and J.D. Smith, The Commodores: The Drama of a Navy under Sail, s.l. 1969; M. Lindsay, ‘La mitrailleuse à silex à 7 canons de Joseph C. Chambers, au Musée d’Armes de Liège’, Le Musée d’Armes (de Liège) 3 (1975), no. 10, pp. 9-13; W.G.M.H. Canisius, ‘Een Amerikaans “Repetitie-pistool” uit 1818’, De wapenverzamelaar 26 (1991), pp. 26-36; W. Gilkerson, Boarders Away II, with Fire: The Small Firearms and Combustibles of the Classical Age of Fighting Sail 1626-1826, Lincoln, Rhode Island 1993, pp. 120-55; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, p. 216

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly James Chambers and James Haslett, Repeating Swivel Gun, United States of America, c. 1813 - c. 1814', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244605