BOURGOGNE,
Fabricant d'arcs et de Flesches,
Place St. Laurent, No. 14,
Lausanne.

So much for the "disabilities of the long bow," when used against armour of Spanish steel; but we'll go further, and meet this veracious champion of the musket on his own ground, who scruples not to affirm, that an English steel headed shaft, far from inflicting wounds through a military buff coat, would scarcely penetrate ordinary broad cloth.

Now this is very audacious in one who had repeatedly witnessed the effects of archery on the field of battle; but the whole book is beneath contempt. Nevertheless, I will cite an instance or two in disproof of his assertions, merely because the narrative itself is too amusing to be omitted in a work of this sort. First, then, for "the broad cloth."

"Drawing near to the landing-place," says the author of "Proceedings in New England, A.D. 1638," " the number of Indians that rose from behind the barricado amounted to between fifty and sixty fighting men; straight as arrows, very tall, and of active bodies. Having their arrows nocked, they drew near to the water-side, and let fly at the soldiers as though they meant to have made an end of us all in a moment. They shot a young gentleman in the neck, through a collar, for stiffness, as If it had been an oaken board, and entered his flesh a good depth. Myself received an arrow through my coat sleeve; a second against my helmet on the forehead; so, if God, in his providence, had not moved the heart of my wife, to persuade me to carry it along with me, which I was unwilling to do, I had been slain. Let no man, therefore, despise the council of his wife, though she be a woman."

A little further on, the same author enables us to deal with the buff-coat after a similar fashion.

"Having given fire we approached near to the entrance, which they had stopped full arms of trees or stakes. Myself, approaching the entrance, found the work too heavy for me, to draw out all those that were strongly forced in. We therefore gave orders to Master Hedge and some other soldiers to pull out those stakes. Having thus done, and laid them between me and the entrance, they proceeded of themselves, without order, to the south end of the fort. But it was remarkable to many of us, that men who run before they are sent most commonly have an ill reward. With our carbines, in our left hands and our swords in our right, we approached the fort. Master Hedge was shot through both arms. Captain Mason and myself, entering into the wigwams, he was shot at, and received many arrows against his head-piece, but God preserved him from any wounds. Myself received an arrow through the left hip, through a sufficient buff-coat, that, if I had not been supplied with such a garment, would have pierced me through and through. Another I received through neck and shoulders, hanging in the linen of my head-piece; others of our soldiers were shot, some through the shoulders, some in the face, some in the head, some in the legs, Captain Mason and myself each losing a man. I had twenty wounded."

An Indian chief, named Carrara, requested permission to examine the sword of a Portuguese officer, with whom he was in company. The owner having observed that this weapon would pierce through a double buff-coat, our Indian friend immediately requested to see it done This the Portuguese performed, but sorely bruised his hand with the pomel of the sword, the coat being placed across the back of a chair. When the Indian saw the effects of the sword, he asked for his bow, and, adding a third fold to the leathern garment, made so furious a shot that he pierced it through and through. All present stood astonished at the power of what they had previously considered an insignificant weapon.

The facts here adduced receive additional corroboration from the following return of killed and wounded in a battle with archers. This statement, which is interesting from its rarity, was published by Mons. de la Fueillard, at the siege of Candia, A.D. 1667.