Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship

by Robert Kurson

When cannonballs did find their targets, they could cause devastating damage. Weighing at least six pounds, and often much more, they could tear through the thick hulls and masts of enemy ships, sending huge wood splinters flying into anything, and anyone, nearby. Mattera was surprised to learn that the secondary impact from splinters was the cause of most human casualties from naval cannon fire. Slower flying cannonballs often did the most damage because they didn’t penetrate as cleanly through wood, which meant cannons fired from a distance might be the deadliest of them all.

On board the frigates, boys as young as ten ran gunpowder from dry holds belowdecks up to the gunners. Most often, the powder was contained in a sausage-shaped canvas bag known as the cartridge, which was loaded into the bore of the cannon. The size of the cartridge depended on the size of the ball to be fired; usually, the gunpowder weighed a little more than half what the cannonball did. (A twelve pounder, for example, would require about seven pounds of gunpowder.) Wadding, made from old rope or canvas, was pushed in after the powder, then shoved down to the breach (rear) along with the cartridge by a long piece of wood called a rammer. Next, the cannonball was loaded, followed by more wadding and ramming.

Amputations were performed frequently, but the surgeons did not go into them lightly. The operation “cannot be performed without putting the Patient to violent and inexpressible pain,” wrote Pierre Dionis, a prominent French surgeon of the time and author of a surgical textbook.

Nor were surgeons under any illusions about the outcomes; there was a good chance a patient would die after amputation, but it was near certain he would die without it. So they did what had to be done.

To Mattera, the lesson was clear: A person had to go when his heart told him to go. Even if he didn’t know how the journey would end.