CARTOUCHE, in the military art, signifies a case of wood, about three inches thick at the bottom, girt with marline, and containing about four hundred musket balls, besides six or eight balls of iron of a pound weight, to be fired out of a hobit, for the defence of a pass, or the like.
A cartouche is sometimes made of a globular form, and filled with a ball of a pound weight; sometimes it is made for the guns, being filled with balls of half or quarter a pound weight, according to the nature of the gun, tied in the form of a bunch of grapes, on a tompon of wood, and coated over. These were used instead of partridge-shot.