BROADSIDE  , sometimes termed, BROADSHEET, a single

sheet of paper containing printed matter on one side only . The broad-side seems to have been employed from the very beginning of printing for royal proclamations, papal indulgences and similar documents . England appears to have been its chief home, where it was used chiefly for ballads, particularly in the 16th century, but also as a means of political agitation and for personal statements of all kinds, especially for the dissemination of the dying speeches and confessions of criminals . It is prominent in the history of literature because, particularly during the later part of the 17th century, several important poems, by Dryden, Butler and others, originally appeared printed on the " broad side " of a sheet . The term is also used of the simultaneous discharge of the guns on one side of a ship of war .