The shooting was execrable.

It was hard to say which were worse marksmen, the officers of the ship, or the passengers.

Not a bottle was hit: many reasons were offered for this failure, but the two principal ones were, that the muskets were bad, and that it required great skill to overcome the difficulty occasioned by both, the vessel and the bottle being in motion at the same time, and that motion dissimilar.
I lost my patience.

I had never practised shooting with ball; I had frightened a few snipe, and wounded a few partridges, but that was the extent of my experience.

I knew, however, that I could not by any possibility shoot worse than every body else had done, and might by accident shoot better.
"Give me a gun, Captain," said I, "and I will shew you how to uncork that bottle." I took the musket, but its weight was beyond my strength of arm.