Serendipity

The Spanish royal cypher
Lettering around the breech, showing place and date of castingThe gun in place
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On Monday Cindy and I took a trip over to Missouri's state capital of Jefferson City. We had a little time to spare after concluding our business so we took a walk along the Missouri Veterans' memorial on the north side of the Capitol building. Much to my delight we found the cannon shown in the photos above, mounted at the east end of the sidewalk. It's a Spanish gun, cast in Barcelona on 4th March 1769, and captured in the Spanish-American War of 1898. I'm a bit hazy as to its caliber, but suspect it threw a 24 pound ball. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the muzzle, but I can say it had a rather irregular bore. Firing it must have been an adventure every time!