The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c12.s1.11

c12.s1.11

One observer, De la Flotte, who was in the south of India from April 1758 to May 1760, declares that Indian cannon, when used in fortresses, were not mounted on carriages: “they are put on the very embrasure, or they are supported by two great movable timbers (*poutres*). The balls are of stone, they make many ricochets and then roll a great distance”. M. de la Flotte saw at Jinjī, the well-known fortress 82 miles s.w. of Madras, one of these pieces, which was twenty feet in length. At Arkāt (Arcot) in 1746 Clive seems to have fired a big native gun from a mound of earth, without having any carriage (Orme, i, 191, referred to by Horn, 34). Colonel M. Wilks also speaks of an occasion in 1768 when the guns of the Indians were numerous “but unmounted”. In Northern India, however, some sort of carriage seems to have been used even for heavy guns, when they were employed in the defence of a fortress.