Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/46

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. n. JULY 9, 1904.

daughters Elizabeth, Frances, Carolina, and Jane. To Mr. Asty, minister of the gospel, she leaves a wainscot press and some oi the books therein, and in a codicil, dated 25 November, 1728, 10*. The will gives 102. for the poor to the deacons of his church. Madame Elizabeth Fleetwood's will, proved 10 August, 1728 (P.C.C. Brook, 236), also contains a bequest to John Asty. Elizabeth and Jane were in reality step-daughters of Ellen Fleetwood, as they were the third and sixth daughters of Smith Fleetwood's first marriage with Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Hartopp.

Mary Carter was the daughter of General Charles Fleetwood by his second wife Bridget, daughter of Oliver Cromwell ; she married Nathaniel Carter, of Yarmouth, at Stoke Newington, 21 February, 1677/8 (4 th S. ix. 363). She was buried at St. Nicholas's Church, Great Yarmouth. She is mentioned in her father's will, and in Smith Fleet- wood's will, dated 25 August, 1697, proved 5 May, 1729 (P.C.C. Abbott, 132), she and her husband both taking 101. John Asty also receives a legacy of 5l. In a funeral sermon, " occasioned by the Death of the very Reli- gious Mrs. Elizabeth Fleetwood, Preach'd at Stoke Newington, June 23, 1728," Asty speaks of his earliest service in the ministry being devoted to the Fleetwood family,
 * l wherein I lived many Years." R. W. B.

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (10 th S. i. 448). I cannot give MR. J. DORMER the information he wishes to gain about "La Manche," but I think he may like to have his attention drawn to the fact that Drayton calls the same water-way the Sleeve, in his ' Ballad of Agincourt.' He says of King Henry V. :

But, for he found those vessels were too few, That into France his army should convey, He sent to Belgia, whose great store he knew Might now at need supply him every way. His bounty ample as the winds that blew, Such barks for portage out of ev'ry bay

In Holland, Zealand and in Flanders, brings, As spread the wide Sleeve with their canvass wings.

A foot-note on Sleeve runs : " The sea between France and England, so called." In * Poly- olbion,' xviii. 744, the Channel is "the Celtique Sea." Camden, when treating of Sussex and speaking by the pen of Gibson, says, " It lies all on the south side, upon the British Ocean, with a streight shore" (edit. 1695, p. 165).

So far as I can remember, Shakespeare never gives the name of any of our circum- ambient seas ; which fact, if fact it be, is, in view of his historical plays, quite worthy of remark. ST. SWITHIN.

THE ARMSTRONG GUN (10 th S. i. 388, 436). In 1839 I invented a gun similar to that which was afterwards called the Armstrong gun and shell, and also a system of coast defence. In 1853-4 my father, unknown to me, submitted my plans for guns and shell to Sir Hew Ross, Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, who commented favourably, and to Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, who had known my father many years. There- upon I was summoned from Cornwall to Woolwich, to meet the Committee of Defence, who made objections that proved in after years as trivial as I then deemed them. The chairman insisted that nothing would com- pensate for boring out the breech (evidently strengthen the wrought-iron coil), and the compound gun would not stand the vibration (possibly, if heat came from without ; but the heat coming from within, expansion would prevent vibration). My gun would weigh seventy tons (the "Woolwich Infant" weighs eighty tons). Other objections were also easily overcome.

We observed that one officer, in undress, attentively listened and seldom spoke before the last half hour, when the others were discussing our gun platforms revolving under cover, and following up the remarks of Sir Hew Ross on the artistic merit of my draw- ings. Lieut.-Col. Anderson, the said officer, then questioned me apart more minutely. He seemed slow, and with difficulty 1 made him fully understand my shell, which Mr. Arm- strong considered more scientific than the gun. We passed on to my defences, and I was explaining merely what applied to a rock- bound coast, when the chairman (Col. Chal- mers, R.A.) proposed to adjourn, as they had sat nearly two hours over time, and to meet again, as so much novel and important matter remained ; but, to judge from the objections already raised, it seemed waste of time, and that I had better go home.

On my return I explained my plans to an old captain R.N. and his two sons, and said, " They will come to all this, and remember 1 show it to you now." This was frequently mentioned in the Western press (between 1866 and 1875), and, I believe, repeated in the London press.

When it leaked out that a Mr. Armstrong (who first turned his attention to gunnery six months later) had received 8,0001. from the War Office to make experiments, my father immediately claimed the inven- tion as mine at the age of nineteen. In fairness some member of the Committee might have intervened, but the Ordnance had meanwhile been turned over to the War