Gun crews???

[Hawkyns]

I really wish Seller went into more detail about the operation of the guns and less about the math involved. And most of the manuals are the same.

Here's another from the HMS Richmond website. It identifies it as an 18th century gunners manual, but doesn't list author and date.

http://hmsrichmond.org/images/Gun%20exercise.pdf

This also specifies crows and handspikes.

Now, this next comment is based on observation of illustrations, and reading between a lot of lines, but I don't have written specific documentation on it.

Handspikes are long wooden levers with a wedge shaped head, wrapped in steel. Basically, a wedge on the end of a long shaft. That I can prove from several primary source documents.

What appears to be the crow is a long shaft with a metal fork on the end, similar to the back side of a claw hammer, only larger. I have references to these also as fork levers from Rudyard's "Course of Artillery" from 1791.

Hawkyns