A Charming Napoleonic Wars Period, Circa 1812 Officer's Pocket Boxlock Pistol By William Hole of No 79 Quay, Bristol. Nicely Engraved Steel Mounts, And An Excellent, Tight and Crisp Action

Effectively, the George IIIrd period, English version of a pocket Derringer pistol. Made for and used by a British officer from Bristol in the Napoleonic Wars . Finely chequered walnut bag-shaped grip, good tight action, with a single cock percussion action, converted from flintlock in around 1830, around 30 years after it was made, to enable the pistol to be far more efficient, near waterproof, and to remain in good usable and serviceable condition for another thirty years or so.

As early as 1420, vessels from the English port of Bristol were regularly travelling to Iceland and it is speculated that sailors from Bristol had made landfall in the Americas before Christopher Columbus or John Cabot. After Cabot arrived in Bristol, he proposed a scheme to the king, Henry VII, in which he proposed to reach Asia by sailing west across the north Atlantic. He estimated that this would be shorter and quicker than Columbus' southerly route. The merchants of Bristol, operating under the name of the Society of Merchant Venturers, agreed to support his scheme. They had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic from the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities. In 1552 Edward VI granted a Royal Charter to the Merchant Venturers to manage the port.

By 1670, the city had 6,000 tons of shipping, of which half was used for importing tobacco. By the late 17th century and early 18th century, this shipping was also playing a significant role in British world trade.

One of the more interesting aspects common among these pistols is that the doghead was centered internally on the pistol in a fashion similar to hammers on today's modern pistols. (That is the action was mounted internally instead of one of the sides of the pistol.) Boxlock pistols were pocket pistols popular in the late 1700's and early 1800's. This type of design is known as a "box lock". The box lock was more difficult to manufacture than a typical side mounted flintlock and tended to be more expensive to produce.

Not the last original picture in the gallery, its an original Georgian period painting of a naval captain {John Paul Jones} in hand to hand combat on deck, shooting a matelot with his boxlock and tucked within his belt is a row of four further box lock pistols.

Just returned from extensive cleaning, polishing and conservation

Code: 25613