18th century Gunners Stilleto?

[terry1956]

hi chaps, I just can,t get my head around this being a navy weapon, I have read 100,s of books about sea actions during the black powder period and not once have i read that any guns got spiked, if a ship was taken and that was the only way to get to the guns it was out of the fight so no need to use the ships guns, and if they had of been spiked then there was time and tools to remove the spike. so I just don,t thing it was used by any navy. however i do remember years ago reading about slave ships which had small cannon mounted to clear the decks of the ship if the slaves did try to take the ship, with this in mine spiking these guns may of been a plan, so maybe gunners on slave ships of the time had these items.
at waterloo when the french cavalry overran the british guns it was always said that the biggest mistake was their not taking along artilleryman to spike the british guns. but did the french have any means to spike their cannons, when the french grande battery was over run by the british cavalry during the same battle no french use the spike to disable their gun, so i thing we can take it that these daggers did not form part of the french artillery mans kit. in early wars the artillery was crewed by hired gunners who also in some cases owned their own cannon, it maybe that the dagger was part of their kit to spike the cannon if it was in danger of being taken, with the hope that if spiked the enemy would leave the heavy weapon in position until the battle was won or lost, the gunner would hope that his side won and he would be able to get his cannon back and remove the spike, so that puts it at a date if used on land before 1740 and if on a slave ship before 1840. michael