The Sailor's Word-Book Part 3

ACT OF G.o.d. This comprehends all sudden accidents arising from physical causes, as distinguished from _human_ agency, such as from lightning, earthquakes, hurricanes, plagues, and epidemic contagion amongst the crew. For none of these are ship-owners responsible.

ACT OF GRACE. An act of parliament for a general and free pardon to deserters from the service and others.

ACTING COMMISSION. When a commissioned officer is invalided, his vacancy is filled up pending the pleasure of the admiralty by an acting order.

But when an officer dies on a station, where the admiralty delegates the power to the admiral commanding in chief, the vacancy is filled by an acting commission. Thus also rear-admirals now act on acting commissions as vice-admirals during command on their station, but return to their proper position on the navy list when it ceases.

ACTION. Synonymous with _battle_. Also a term in mechanics for the effort which one body exerts against another, or the effects resulting therefrom.--_Action and reaction_, the mutual, successive, contrary impulses of two bodies.

ACTIVE SERVICE. Duty against an enemy; operations in his presence. Or in the present day it denotes serving on full-pay, on the active list, in contradistinction to those who are virtually retired, and placed on separate lists.

ACTIVITY. The virtue of acting. The sphere of _activity_ is the surrounding s.p.a.ce to which the efficacy of a body extends, as the attraction of the magnet.

ACTO, OR ACTON. A kind of defensive tunic, made of quilted leather, or other strong material, formerly worn under the outer dress, and even under a coat of mail.

ACTUARIae. Long light vessels of the ancients, especially contrived for swiftness; propelled both by sails and oars; of the latter never less than twenty.

Ac.u.mBA. Oak.u.m. The Anglo-Saxon term for the _hards_, or the coa.r.s.e part, of flax or unplucked wool.

ACUTE. Terminating in a point, and opposed to _obtuse_. An _acute_ angle is less than a right one, or within 90.

ACUTE-ANGLED TRIANGLE. That which has all its angles acute.

ADAMANT. The loadstone; the magnet--the sense in which it was held by early voyagers; but others considered it a "precyowse stone," or gem.

ADAMAS. The moon in nautic horoscopes.

ADAPTER. A bra.s.s tube to fit the eye-end of a telescope, into which all the eye-pieces will screw.

ADARRIS. A word which Howell explains as the flower of sea-water.

ADDEL, OR ADDLE. An old term for the putrid water in casks.

ADDICE, an adze. Also the addled eggs of gulls and other sea-fowl.

ADDLINGS. Acc.u.mulated pay or wages.

ADELANTADO. A lieutenant of the king of Spain, but used by old English writers for "admiral."

ADHESION. Consent to a proposal. Union or temporary cohesion; as, two vessels forced into _adhesion_ by the pressure of the tide on their beam.

ADIT. A s.p.a.ce in ancient ships, in the upper and broadest part, at which people entered. The _adit_ of a military mine, is the aperture by which it is dug and charged: the name is also applied to an air-hole or drift.

ADJACENT. Lying close to another object; a word applied to the relative situations of capes or bays from the ship.--_Adjacent angle_ is one immediately contiguous to another, so that they have one common side.

ADJOURN, TO. To put off till another day. _Adjournments_ can be made in courts-martial from day to day, Sundays excepted, until sentence is pa.s.sed.

ADJUDICATION. The act of adjudging prizes by legal decree. Captors are compelled to submit the adjudication of their captures to a competent tribunal.

ADJUST, TO. To arrange an instrument for use and observation; as, to adjust a s.e.xtant, or the escapement of a chronometer. To set the frame of a ship.

ADJUSTMENT. In marine insurance, the ascertaining and finally settling the amount of indemnity--whether of average or of salvage--which the insured (after all proper deductions have been made) is ent.i.tled to receive under the policy, when the ship is lost.

ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPa.s.s. Swinging a ship to every point of bearing, to note the variation or error of the needle upon each rhumb, due to the local attraction of the iron, or the ma.s.s, on each separate compa.s.s bearing. Thus, in lat. 76 N. it was found to be +22 30' with the head W.S.W., and -56 30' on the opposite bearing, or E.N.E.

ADJUTANT. [From Lat. _adjuvo_, to help.] A military a.s.sistant to field-officers. The term has been applied to an a.s.sistant captain of a fleet. It is indeed the duty performed by first lieutenants.

ADMEASUREMENT. The calculation of proportions according to a.s.sumed rules, often ignorantly practised in estimating the tonnage of a ship.

ADMIRAL. The derivation of this n.o.ble t.i.tle from the Greek _almyros_, from the Latin _admirabilis_, from the Saxon _aenmereeal_, and from the French _aumer_, appear all fanciful. It is extensively received that the Sicilians first adopted it from _emir_, the sea, of their Saracen masters; but it presents a kind of unusual etymological inversion. The term is most frequent in old Romance; but the style and t.i.tle was not used by us until 1286; and in 1294, William de Leybourne was designated "Amiral de la Mer du Roy d'Angleterre;" six years afterwards Viscount Narbonne was const.i.tuted Admiral of France; which dates nearly fix the commencement of the two states as maritime powers.

The _admiral_ is the chief commander of a fleet, but of this rank there are three degrees, distinguished by a flag at the fore, main, or mizen mast, according to the t.i.tle of _admiral_, _vice-admiral_, or _rear-admiral_. These were again subdivided according to their colour of red, white, or blue, which had to be likewise borne by the squadrons they respectively commanded. (_See_ FLAG.) In 1865 the colours were omitted, and the only flag now hoisted by ships of war is the white St.

George's ensign, and for admirals the white St. George's cross at the main, fore, or mizen.

The _admiral of the fleet_ is the highest officer under the admiralty of Great Britain; it is rather an honorary distinction, and usually attained by seniority and service: when this officer serves afloat, he hoists the proud distinction of the Union flag at the main.

The _lord high-admiral_ was one of the princ.i.p.al officers of the state, who formerly decided all cases relating to the sea: he wore a gold call and chain, similar in form to that which has descended to the boatswain and his mate. This dignity has been extinct for many years, and the duty merged into that of the lords-commissioners and admiralty court; in 1827, it was revived for a short time in the person of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence.

The epithet of _admiral_ was also formerly applied to any large or leading ship, without reference to flag; and is still used for the princ.i.p.al vessel in the cod and whale fisheries. That which arrives first in any port of Newfoundland retains this t.i.tle during the season, with certain rights of beach in flakes. The master of the second ship becomes the vice-admiral, and the master of the third the rear-admiral.

ADMIRAL. A beautiful and rare sh.e.l.l of the genus _Conus_; the varieties are designated the grand-admiral, the vice-admiral, the orange-admiral, and the extra-admiral.

ADMIRALTY. An office for the administration of naval affairs, presided over by a lord high-admiral, whether the duty be discharged by one person, or by commissioners under the royal patent, who are styled lords, and during our former wars generally consisted of seven. The present const.i.tution of the Board of Admiralty comprises--the first lord, a minister and civilian as to office; four naval lords; one civil lord attending to accounts, &c.; one chief secretary; one second secretary. Two lords and one secretary form a legal Board of Admiralty wherever they may be a.s.sembled, under the authority of the board or its chief.

ADMIRALTY BLACK-BOOK. _See_ BLACK-BOOK.

ADMIRALTY COURT. The const.i.tution of this court relatively to the legislative power of the king in council, is a.n.a.logous to that of the courts of common law relatively to the parliament of the kingdom.--_High Court of Admiralty_, a supreme court of law, in which the authority of the lord high-admiral is ostensibly exercised in his _judicial_ capacity for the trial of maritime causes of a civil nature. Although termed the High Court of Admiralty, more properly this is the Court of Vice-Admiralty, and relates solely to civil and military matters of the sea, and sea boundaries, prizes, collisions, vessels or goods cast on the sh.o.r.e where the vice-admirals have civil jurisdiction, but no naval power, as the lord-lieutenants of counties are named in their patents "vice-admirals of the same;" in like manner all governors of colonies.

All cases in connection are tried by the Admiralty Court in London, or by our "courts of vice-admiralty and prize jurisdictions abroad."

Admirable as some of the decisions of this expensive tribunal have been, it has all the powers of the Inquisition in its practice, and has thereby been an instrument of persecution to some innocent navigators, while it has befriended notorious villains. Besides this we have the Admiralty Court of Oyer and Terminer, for the trial of all murders, piracies, or criminal acts which occur within the limits of the country, on the coast-lines, at sea, or wherever the admiralty jurisdiction extends--the deck of a British ship included.

ADMIRALTY MIDSHIPMAN. Formerly one who, having served the appointed time, and pa.s.sed his examination for lieutenant, was appointed to a ship by the admiralty, and thus named in contradistinction to those who used to be rated by the captain; he generally had precedence for promotion to "acting orders."

ADONIS. An anguilliform fish, about six inches long: it is of a golden colour, with a greenish tint, and has a white line from its very small gills to the tail.

ADORNINGS. The carved work on the quarter and stern-galleries of men-of-war.

ADOWN. The bawl of privateersmen for the crew of a captured vessel to go below. Saxon, _adoun_.

ADREAMT. Dozing; the sensation so often combatted with towards the end of a first or a middle watch, it being the state, as an old author has it, "between sleeping and waking."

ADRENT, OR ADREYNTE. An old term for _drowned_.

ADRIFT. Floating at random; the state of a boat or vessel broken from her moorings, and driven to and fro without control by the winds and waves. Cast loose; cut adrift.

ADSCRIPTS. Sometimes used for the tangents of arcs.

AD VALOREM. Duties levied on commercial goods, according to their value.

ADVANCE, TO. An old word, meaning to raise to honour.