Sc. Obs. [app. ad. 16th c. Flem. kartouwe ‘genus bombardæ maioris, vulgo cartuna et quartana, Ger. cartaun, It. courtaun’ (Kilian); meaning ‘quarter-cannon’ (CARTHOUN).
The Flemish word and the form curtall ‘a great gun’ mentioned by Hall, suggest F. quartaut, in the 16th c. quartault, the measure of a fourth of a bushel, which Littré refers to med.L. quartāle: but no evidence of the application of the F. word to a gun has been found. Cartow was apparently sometimes associated in the 17th c. with cart, as if the same as cart-piece, i.e., carriage-gun.]
A kind of cannon, also called a quarter-cannon, which threw a ball of a quarter of a hundred-weight. See also CARTHOUN.
1650. Row, Hist. Kirk (1842), 519 June 15 … The Covenanters Lords … had … with them tuo great cartowes and some lesser field-peeces.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (1830), I. 109. Two cartowis or quarter canons, haveing the bullet to about 24 pound weight each. Ibid., II. 228. On Tuysday 14 of May, the tua Cartowis wes brocht about fra Montrois to Abirdene be sea: bot thair wheilles wes hakit and hewin by the Gordouns, as ye have hard. Thair cam also tua uther iron cart peices to the schoir.
