University of Virginia Library

1. "Bilge," bottom of a ship's hull.

2. The word "stockes" curiously is omitted by Sir Henry Mainwaring in "The Seaman's
Dictionary," in G. E. Manwaring and W. G. Perrin, eds., The Life and Works of
Sir Henry Mainwaring (Navy Records Society, LIV, LVI [London, 1920, 1922]), II,
hereafter cited as Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary."

3. By the time William Falconer wrote An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 2d ed.
(London, 1771), the crab was obsolete except on a few merchant ships, being "a sort of
wooden pillar, whose lower end, restd upon a sockey like the capstern; and having in it's
upper end three or four holes, at different heights, through the middle of it, above one
another, into which long bars are thrust" (sigs. L2r, M4v). He explains that a capstan
has a drum head into which numerous bars are inserted in relatively shallow holes,
whereas the long bars of the crab impeded its users and so it was less efficient. The
"clawes" are not defined, but in an illustration it appears that they might have been the
three curved supports for the crab's pillar, whose base was two boards at right angles to
each other. In the case of the crab described here for use on land, the base was evidently
secured in some way to the ground.

4. "Compassing" here means "in a curve."

5. "Futtocks"; curved framing timbers. See Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary,"
153–154, 216, for full descriptions of the futtocks, the rung heads, and so on.

6. "Hold"; this was also spelled "holl," "hole." The orlop is explained on p. 5,
below.

7. Stringers.

8. On a ship, a seam is the interstice between the planks.

9. Smith apparently meant something like "trennels," i.e., a phonetic spelling of
the way "treenails" was pronounced. Treenails are pins of oak used to hold a ship's planking
together. Trunnions, the metal projections from the side of the bore of a cannon used
to support it on its carriage, are an entirely different kind of thing, which would be out
of context in this paragraph.

10. Apparently Mainwaring's spelling of "hood ends," or "hooding ends" ("Sea-
man's Dictionary," 256); cf. the OED, s.v. "hood" sb8.

1. Mainwaring defines "tuck" as "the very gathering up of the ship's quarters under
water" ("Seaman's Dictionary," 250). The OED defines it as "the gathering of the ends
of the bottom planks of a ship under the stern." Round tuck and flat tuck are variations
in the manner in which this was done.

2. The relative pronoun ("that," "which") is missing here, as often in Smith's
works.

3. Cf. Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary," 206: "The rake aftward on ... commonly
is about a fourth or fifth part of her rake forward on."

4. "Wales."

5. For this term, see Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary," 104. "Jaggered" is perhaps
a hapax legomenon for "jagged."

6. The reference is to Sir George Somers's cedar ship built in Bermuda, 1609–1610,
called the Patience (see the Generall Historie, 175–176).

7. False decks for convenience in mounting ordnance (Mainwaring, "Seaman's
Dictionary," 96).

8. This replaces Mainwaring's "uppermost" (ibid., 213). The meaning is "aftermost."

1. A frequent spelling of "waist."

2. A variant spelling of "coamings."

3. A miscopy of Mainwaring's "they are" ("Seaman's Dictionary," 218).

4. A rare spelling of "sheaves." Properly, the sheaves were the wheels in the pulleys
(see p. 19, below).

5. "Kevels" (cf. Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary," 172).

6. A variant form of "windlass" current in Smith's day.

7. A new sentence should begin here.

8. An uncommon word, more usually spelled "jeer."

9. "Voyal."

10. "Sease" was a variant spelling of "seize," meaning "to fasten two parts together."

1. "Dale."

2. A variant spelling of "thight," which is an earlier form of "tight" in the sense of
"watertight."

3. A yellowish mixed metal like, or the same as, brass (cf. Spanish lata, "tin can").
Elder guns were popguns made of elder shoots.

4. "Coats"; these are explained on p. 16, below.

5. "Loof."

6. Variant of "foam."

7. More commonly, "hawse-holes."

8. The bit about the "Hause-plug" was added by Smith. The reference is probably
to what is also called a hawse bag, a canvas bag filled with oakum used to stuff into the
hawseholes, thereby preventing the entrance of seawater (see Peter Kemp, ed., The
Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea [London, 1976], 380).

9. "David" was an old form of "davit."

1. "Ceiling"; the word was not limited in nautical use to meaning "roof," but
referred to inside planking generally.

2. An obsolete term practically synonymous with "bulkhead."

3. "Murderers" were small iron or brass cannons (see Mainwaring, "Seaman's
Dictionary," 189). The various kinds of ordnance are listed on p. 70, below.

4. "Pasteboard"; Smith's or the compositor's phonetic spelling.

5. Magnetized.

6. The traverse board was used to keep track of changes of course and either distance
run or speed. This enabled the navigator to reckon course and distance made good at the
end of the watch. Traverse tables were used for the calculation.

7. An obsolete form of "roll."

8. Possibly a misprint for "parted [off]" (cf. the OED, s.v. "bread-room"), but
probably the meaning is "plated" with tin sheeting to protect the bread-room from rats
and other vermin.

9. Also "tozed match," teased or shredded hemp, etc. Hurds, or hards, were the
coarser parts of flax, hemp, etc.

1. Smeared.

2. Graving was cleaning a ship's bottom (usually by burning); Smith seems to have
been confused (see Mainwaring, "Seaman's Dictionary," 156–157).

3. "Broming" in some copies; the modern form is "breaming," more or less the
same as graving.

4. The phrase "4. sharpe Flores" seems mutilated. "Having a sharp floor" meant
"having a narrow and wedge-shaped bottom" (see the OED, s.v. "sharp," A.9.e.);
Mainwaring refers to ships built "sharp under water" ("Seaman's Dictionary," 117).
Below, "parsling" is an obsolete spelling of "parceling."

5. Read "precedents," i.e., specimen printed forms (cf. the Accidence, 10n).

6. "Bowsprit."

7. A made mast is one built up from several pieces rather than turned out of a single
timber.

8. "Hoist." Mainwaring has a long paragraph on the "ties" ("Seaman's Dictionary,"
245).

9. See ibid., 116.

10. "Trestle trees."

1. The rest of this paragraph is Smith's observation.

2. To "woold" is to bind with ropes, chains, etc.

3. "Sized."

4. "Lanyard."

5. "Taut."

6. Puttocks were small or short shrouds. Smith clarifies the matter on the next page.
The word was later confused with "futtocks."

7. "Ratlines."

8. Mainwaring calls them "little round things of wood which belong to the parrells"
("Seaman's Dictionary," 249).

1. Mainwaring calls this the "snatch block" (ibid., 228), which is the term in modern
use.

2. Make taut.

3. Another variant of "seize."

4. "Parbuckle."

5. Obsolete form of "robands."

6. "Brails."

7. "Cringles." Note that Smith goes on to cite two spellings of modern "furl," to
which "fardel," "farl," and "furdle" may be added. The word is a good example of
specialized jargon spread by word-of-mouth and eventually written down in various
forms according to the pronunciation or hearing of the speaker or the listener. In this
instance the source seems to have been an Arabic word for "bundle" (OED, s.v. "fardel"
sb1.).

8. "Bowlines bridles."

1. "Goring."

2. "Chesstrees."

3. "Eyelet."

4. Obsolete form of "latchings."

5. Perhaps this should read, "or the bonnet to the Drabler," in view of the rest of
the sentence.

6. This word could be an error for "cringle," or for "chinkle," a small loop in a
rope. The latter is not in the OED, but is attested in F. H. Burgess, A Dictionary of Sailing
(Baltimore, 1961), 50 (see the editor's Introduction, above).

7. "Nettles."

8. The meaning of "sarve" as used here is explained below.

9. More commonly, "paunch."

1. Broad shreds of cloth or rags, woven of loose ends, braided cordage, coarse hemp,
etc.

2. "Seasen" is apparently a sea painter. In the margin, "Sirvis" seems to have been
a unique spelling of "service," a "small cord ... wound around a rope to protect it"
(OED, with a later reference).

3. A variant form of "gasket."

4. "Marline."

5. Lower ends.

6. Mainwaring has a pertinent passage: "an extraordinary wind ... will blow the
sail out of the bolt ropes" ("Seaman's Dictionary," 101).

7. A cut splice refers to two ropes spliced to form an eye between the ropes. Mainwaring
has a different word for "cut" (ibid., 231).

8. Obsolete form of "strands."

9. This is surely based on Smith's own experience on his second Chesapeake Bay
voyage, July–Sept. 1608 (Proceedings, 37).

10. "Wadmal" was a coarse woolen material made in Wales in Smith's day and in
Witney, near Oxford, still.

1. "Thwarts."

2. "Tholes."

3. "Carlins."

4. The word "ging" was more common in Smith's time. He was an early user of
the word "gang" in the modern sense.

5. Probably an error for "Amens!" (cf. the Accidence, 30).

6. This list of 13 ropes can be taken for what it is worth. It is not complete, and it
includes one or two names of doubtful general acceptance.

7. Read: "you have read in the chapter on the building of a ship" (p. 2, above).

8. "Buoy."

9. More commonly, "guest."

1. Girds were sudden, jerky movements.

2. "Grapnels."

3. No further information seems to be available (see the OED, s.v. "shot" sb2).

4. "Coil."

5. "Girt."

6. "Rooftrees."

7. "Stanchions."

8. "Monkey" or "monk's."

9. For explanatory notes pertinent to this chapter, see the Accidence, 1–7nn. The
following changes in the sequence should be observed: the paragraph on the "Chirurgion,"
which in this book falls almost at the beginning of the chapter, was placed after
the "Boteswaine" in the Accidence; a new paragraph on the "Trumpeter" was inserted in
this book where the "Chirurgion" paragraph was in the Accidence. Otherwise the differences
between the texts are of little consequence.

1. That is, "keep the ship near the wind." The word "latch" here is equal to, and
perhaps a distortion of, "lurch" (see the OED, s.v. "lurch" sb3).

2. Read: "means no more than."

3. The origin of this exclamation is obscure. It may be a relic of Norman French
prie Dieu, "pray to God." Note the exhortation below: "every man say his private prayer
for a boone [bon] voyage."

4. This paragraph, as far as "... in their Cabbins to rest," has been expanded and
improved from the Accidence, 7.

5. Gust.

6. Here, "tally" means "haul taut."

7. "Wear."

8. Parallel form of "slack."

9. "A-try" meant "lying to" in a storm.

1. To weather-coil is to lie to in a special way, described in what follows.

2. Sweep over.

3. Keeps her course.

4. "Ooze."

5. Mainwaring has a long passage pertinent to this bit of standard jargon ("Sea-
man's Dictionary," 129–131).

6. Read: "keep the sails full, and sail as close by the wind as is possible."

7. "Braces."

8. As always in sailing, "height" means "latitude."

9. Two aids to navigation. The azimuth is an arc of the heavens at right angles to
the horizon that extends up to the zenith; almacantars (now obsolete) were small circles
of the heavens parallel to the horizon, cutting the meridian at equal distances (see the
OED). There should obviously be a new paragraph after this passage.

1. These markings seem not to have changed (see Burgess, Dictionary of Sailing,
108).

2. This character looks like the letter c in the copy text, but careful inspection under
magnification shows it to be a zero. Cf. the Accidence, 18, where some sort of error in the
text is miscorrected in the Errata (p. 42). "5. o. [fathom] and a shaftment [handbreadth]
lesse" makes more sense than the version given in the Accidence.

3. "Roomy," large (in the nautical sense); see "goe large," a few lines below.

4. "Nealed to, neal," is obsolete for "deep."

5. Grounded, high and dry; note the pronunciation "sued [syood]."

6. A common spelling then for "moor."

7. An occasional variant of "neither."

8. Nelson was the captain of the Phoenix. He arrived in Jamestown on Apr. 20, 1608,
after being driven to the West Indies by a hurricane in late autumn 1607. It was from
the likes of Nelson that Smith obtained many details.

1. The paragraphs that follow, to the bottom of p. 51, are stated to have been
derived from Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimage (Purchas his Pilgrimage. Or Relations Of The
World ... [London, 1613]). This should be corrected to read Purchas's Pilgrimes (Hakluy-
tus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes ... [London, 1625]), as explained in the note on
p. 51, below.

2. Smith is mistaken here. The long borrowed passage is from Purchas's Pilgrimes,
I, 124–126, which in turn is a small part of a long extract Purchas reprinted from Edward
Brerewood, Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife parts
of the world ... (London, 1614). The original source for pp. 48–51, then, is Brerewood,
Enquiries, 109–117. For Brerewood, see the Biographical Directory.

3. It is difficult to know just what proportions are meant. The facts known to the
editor are: Edward Edwards states in his biography of Sir Walter Ralegh that one of
Prince Henry's last enjoyments was his attendance at the launching of his fine ship the
Prince Royal. Edwards notes that the ship was built in accordance with suggestions
Ralegh included in a letter to Prince Henry written in c. 1610 (The Life of Sir W.
Ralegh ... [London, 1868], I, 510–511, II, 330–332). The details in the letter correspond
roughly with the proportions mentioned by Smith. But there is little to confirm that
Ralegh's principles were applied to the Prince Royal. Ralegh is not mentioned in this connection
in W. G. Perrin, ed., The Autobiography of Phineas Pett (Navy Records Soc., LI
[London, 1918]), a work by the actual builder of the vessel. Finally, the letter to Henry
first appeared in print in 1657, in the Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh ..., published in
London. Smith may well have heard that such and such principles of proportion were
suggested by Ralegh, but grounds for a specific attribution, with "chapter and verse,"
seem to the editor to be lacking.

4. A ship that is "cranky" heels too easily.

5. See p. 4n, above.

6. In the copy text, folios 54 and 55 were switched, although the text was in the
correct order. The mistake has been corrected in this edition.

7. Obsolete usage meaning "unsteady," "cranky."

8. See n. 6, immediately above.

9. The chase refers to that part of a ship where the chase ports are; here undoubtedly
the stern.

1. Booty, plunder.

2. Pebbles or stones from the beach.

3. It does not seem improbable that Smith was again inspired by Gervase Markham,
whose Markams Maister-Peece ... (London, 1610) had appeared in a new edition as
recently as 1623. In any case, it was in Smith's own day that the Dutch word meesterstuk
first began to appear in anglicized form. We should not attribute any sense of overwrought
self-esteem to Smith's use of it, for the meaning was not yet quite that of chef
d'oeuvre or capo-lavoro. The meaning is merely "work of a master," and that in turn means
"work of somebody who knows what he is talking about." And Smith explains himself
quite clearly in the first paragraph. Yet this chapter, by any standard, is the masterpiece
of Smith's reportorial incursion into the seaman's art (see D. W. Waters, The Art of Navigation
in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times [New Haven, Conn., 1958], xxxiii–
xxxv). What few comments the editor has to offer regarding chap. 13 are given only
where the linguistic gulf seems too broad. Modern punctuation might facilitate quick
reading, but would destroy the atmosphere John Smith created.

4. "Tier."

5. "Balls."

6. A customhouse certificate. The group of documents would constitute the ship's
papers.

7. "Linseed."

8. For Smith's indebtedness to others for this chapter, see Waters, Art of Navigation,
472–474 and nn; and the list of works on p. 83, below.

1. "Entire."

2. An unusual name for the base ring around the breech of a gun. Below, "mussell"
is modern "muzzle."

3. Smith obviously intended to say "honicombed," not "Taper boared."

4. "Lighted"; a common form of the past participle.

5. The element "budg[e]-" was derived from Old French bouge, "a small leather
bag"; the English "bulge" comes from the same source.

6. Here "pike" appears to be an error for "spike." Trundle shots seem to have fallen
into disuse by the 18th century. This passage contains bits not to be found in Mainwaring,
"Seaman's Dictionary," 91, in the paragraph on arming a shot.

7. Later known as "langrage."

8. I.e., the wild fire was attached to arrows and ignited; thus they were shot
"burning."

9. An aphetic form of "anointed."

1. No good; then a common meaning of the word.

2. Obscure variant of "tampion."

3. Slippery.

4. Elevation.

5. A "currier" seems to have been very similar to a harquebus, but it had a longer
barrel.

6. A "harquebus á croc" had a hook (croc) to support it on a rest.

7. Obviously, a kind of firearm; the name is of uncertain derivation.

8. The books Smith refers to here are: Leonard Digges, A Geometrical Practise, named
Pantometria ... (London, 1571, STC 6858 [orig. publ. 1511]); Thomas Smith, The Arte of
Gunnerie ... (London, 1599, STC 22855); William Bourne, The Arte of shooting in great
Ordnaunce ... (London, 1587, STC 3420); and Robert Norton, Of the Art of Great Artillery
... (London, 1624, STC 18676).

9. "Petro" may be a distortion of the word for the cannon called the pedrero in Spanish, also called perrier (Old French), both of which are
mentioned as ship's guns in the OED.

10. It is impossible to tell for this weapon, because of battered agate (or smaller) type, whether the "bredth of the Ladle" is intended to be
"6 ⅓" or "6 ⅕." The editor has printed it here as "6 ⅓," under the assumption that this is the more likely figure.

1. See the OED, s. v. "rabinet."

2. In Smith's day, this was a petty account kept of certain portions of a ship's
provisions.

3. This is probably a typographical error for "4."

4. From here to the end of the Sea Grammar the pagination is wrong, skipping from
p. 72 to p. 83. This obviously should have been "73."

5. On board ship the marshal superintended the carrying out of punishments.

6. In Smith's day the amplitude was the angular distance at rising or setting of any
celestial body from magnetic E or W on the horizon.

7. Smith's references are to the following: Edward Wright, Certaine Errors in Navigation
... (London, 1610, STC 26020 [orig. publ. 1599]); John Tapp, The Seamans
Kalender ..., 9th ed. (London, 1625, STC 23681 [orig. publ. 1602]); Martin Cortes, The
Arte of Navigation ..., trans. Richard Eden (London, 1615, STC 5805 [orig. publ. 1561]);
William Bourne, A Regiment for the Sea ... (London, 1620, STC 3430 [orig. publ. 1574]);
John Davis, The Seamans Secrets ..., 4th ed. (London, 1626, STC 6370 [orig. publ.
1594?]); Willem Janszoon Blaeu, The Sea-Mirrour ..., trans. Richard Hynmers (Amsterdam,
1625, STC 3113), based on Lucas Janssen Wagenaer, The Mariners Mirrour ...,
trans. Anthony Ashley (London, 1588, STC 24931); Edmund Gunter, De Sectore et
Radio ... (London, 1623, STC 12520); John Aspley, Speculum Nauticum: A Looking Glasse,
for Sea-Men ... (London, 1624, STC 861); Robert Norman, The newe Attractive ...
(London, 1614, STC 18652 [orig. publ. 1581]); William Borough, A Discours of the
Variation of the Cumpas ... (London, 1611, STC 3392 [orig. publ. 1581]); Edward Wright,
The Description and use of the Sphære ... (London, 1627, STC 26022 [orig. publ. 1613]);
Robertus Hues, Tractatus de Globis et eorum Usu ... (London, 1611, STC 13906a [orig.
publ. 1594]), a work that had more recently appeared in Latin in Amsterdam (1624), in
Dutch in Amsterdam (1623), and in French (Paris, 1618). The editor here acknowledges
a great debt to Waters, Art of Navigation, 471–476, in connection with Smith's sources.

8. "74." For a few explanatory notes on the text from here to the end of the book,
see the Accidence, 37–42 nn.

9. "75."