Thanks for that, Pete. Pretty good stuff. I have always been fascinated with the discipline and guts it took to work a cannon while locked in a ship action at close range. Only the Navy could fight using cannons at pistol shot range.

Pistol shot range, by the way, in the era before rifling and cartridges would have been about 25 yards max!

And most of the wounds inflicted were splinters knocked out by the round shot. Imagine a four foot "splinter" of oak through the gut! The old accounts tell of blood running from the scuppers. Must have been horrific.