And today in military engineering... some “fire artefacts” «so that our enemies are burned and killed and surrendered without offending our armadas» (Santo Domingo, 1641).
AGI, MP, Ingenios, 8.
Rockets and arrows to burn the sail and topsail and foresail, which is what you fight with; and burned [the sails], it [the ship] cannot tack, and we throw two and three loads until it sinks.
This is a grenade that is thrown from the crow’s nest that carries forty-fifty bullets and kills as many people are on the deck of the ship.
This is a bottle full of gunpowder with eight or ten lighted fuses, it is thrown when boarding from the stern to burn people.
This is a bomb for the upper deck, full of spikes, which kills and hurts by jumping from one side to the other.
I guess they weren't big fans of the pirates of the Caribbean xD
Aguilera López, A. J. (2020) "Kill it with fire!", in Rowing through History [online].
