MUSKET.. Candid Proposals to England; Being a true and compendious Description of the preferable Advantages and most beneficial Qualities of a new, easy, quick and efficacious Method of Charging and Firing with a common Musket; which, upon Trial, 'tis presumed, will evidently appear far superior to any Way of Charging now in Use.1758

[s.l.], First and only edition, folio (325 x 195 mm), [4]pp., packed-out with blank leaves, caption title, later half red calf, marbled boards, a very nice copy. Newly invented method of charging the Musket. The anonymous inventor provides 21 reasons why his method of charging and firing the Musket with his new Gun-powder and Fire-locks will benefit the marksman in the field "by this Method, each Soldier, in Rank and File, may load and fire five times in a Minute... whereas our English Troops, 'tis generally observed, according to their usual Way, fire but five times, in Ranks and Files, in six Minutes." He goes on to say "At the request of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, just before He went upon the Expedition, the Inventor made two public Experiments, with His great Approbation and no Objections, wherein he fired much oftener, and put three times as many Balls through a Target, in the Space of three Minutes, at forty Paces Distance, than Colonel William Cunningham could do with three Men of the Foot-Guards..." Provenance: From the library Military Library of Thomas Francis Fremantle (3rd Lord Cottesloe). ESTC T218486 locates just 2 copies (Royal Society of Arts in the UK and Hagley Museum and Library in North America); our copy is a variant as ESTC provides a printer and date taken from the colophon, our copy doesn't hold this information.