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| Admiralty Report | An official entry typically from Naval or Government records. | ||
| Articles | A code of conduct drawn up by pirate crews usually without the captain's participation. | ||
| Balinger | Small seagoing sailing vessel without a forecastle used mainly for trade or as a kind of warship | ||
| Bark or Barge or Barque |
General name given to small sailing ships. (After the 17th century=a square rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast "fore-and-aft" rigged.) | ||
| Barbary Coast | Coast of North Africa from Atlantic Ocean to the western coast of Egypt. (Area inhabited by the Berbers) | ||
| Bloody Flux | Dysentery | ||
| Booty | Something that is seized by violence | ||
| Buccaneer | Pirates who sailed the Caribbean and the Eastern coast of North America in 17th Century. The name is derived from their practice of raiding Hispaniola and taking cattle from the Spanish plantations; they dried the meat on grills, known in French as boucan (hence the name buccaneer), and sold it to vessels that put in for provisions. | ||
| Cartouche | A box for cartridges. | ||
| Case-Shot | A collection of small projectiles put in cases to fire from a cannon; canister-shot. | ||
| Cinque Ports | The federation was created to provide ships
and defense of the coastline for the King before the creation of the Royal
Navy by Henry VII in 1496. A group of five ports situated on the S.E. coast of England and having jurisdiction along the coast in order of importance: Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Rommey and Hithe. The Cinque Ports furnished the chief part of the English Navy, in return they had many important franchises an privileges. |
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| Cobb | A Spainsh coin made in the New World. Other name are Piece of Eight or Reale. | ||
| Cog | Small ship of war | ||
| Corsair | A pirate working the Barbary coast (N. Africa) | ||
| Corsair | A fast ship used for piracy. | ||
| Fathom | Six feet | ||
| Fire in the Hole | The warning issued before the gunner set his match to the powder hole on a cannon to fire it. | ||
| Forecastle | A superstructure at or immediately aft of the bow. | ||
| Frigate | A "rated" ship that carried all its guns on a single upper deck. | ||
| Gabion | a cylinder of wickerwork filled with earth, used as a military defense. | ||
| Galleon | A large sailing vessel of the 15th-17th centuries, used as a fighting or merchant ship. Square rigged on the foremast and mainmasts and generally lateen-rigged on one or two after masts. | ||
| Goal | Jail | ||
| Declaration of Paris | Abolished Privateering in 1856 All countries signed except the USA, Spain, Mexico and Venezuela | ||
| Fathom | The length of the outstretched arms of an average-sized man, to the tip of his longest finger. about six feet. | ||
| Goal | Jail | ||
| Hail-Shot | Small shot that scatters like hail when fired from a cannon. | ||
| Hardtack | Dried bread made from flour and water baked into a moisture-free rock to prevent spoilage. Hardtack had to be broken into small pieces or soaked in water before eaten. | ||
| Lanthorn | A Lantern with reflectors made of translucent sheets of horn. | ||
| Lateen Sail | A triangular sail set on a long sloping yard. | ||
| League | A measure of distance about 3 miles. | ||
| Langrange | Case-shot loaded with pieces of iron of irregular shape, used to damage the rigging and sails of the enemy. | ||
| Letters Of Marque or Marquee | License, warrant or commission granted by a belligerent state to a private citizen to arm a private worship to capture and confiscate ships of another country. | ||
| Letter of Reprisal | Similar to Letters of Marque except they are usually issued for only one vessel, usually a particular named vessel. | ||
| Log (ship's) | Daily record of a vessel--ship's diary | ||
| Log Line | A knotted length of line with a piece of wood at the end used to measure a vessel's speed. Thrown into the water to determine how many "knots" ran out in a set period of time | ||
| Lugsail | A quadrilateral sail bent upon a yard that crosses the mast obliquely. | ||
| Marque | A Warrant or Commission | ||
| Mizzen | After mast in a vessel with three or more. | ||
| Moses' Law | Punishment consisting of 40 stripes lacking one. A stripe was the cut left by the lash. | ||
| Parrel | A sliding ring, wood or metal that confines a yard or the jaws of a gaff to the mast in such a manner as that they may be easily hoisted and lowered thereon, as occasion requires. | ||
| Partridge-Shot | a kind of charge for cannon consisting of a number of missiles fired together, similar to langrange or case-shot. | ||
| Pillage | To Strip ruthlessly of money or goods by open violence, to take as booty. | ||
| Pink | A vessel with a sharp, narrow stern and an overhanging stern. | ||
| Pinnace | A light sailing ship used in attendance on a larger ship. | ||
| Pirate | A person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea not in possession of Letters of Marque or reprisal. | ||
| Pope Alexander IV | Split the world in
1494: Spain=W. of Cape Verde Islands Portugal=E. of Cape Verde Islands |
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| Privateer | An armed ship that is privately owned and manned, commissioned by a government to fight or harass enemy ships. | ||
| Provost | Responsible for discipline on board. | ||
| Rutters | Detailed instructions, before maps, listing all that was known about a place or route. | ||
| St. Fiacre | Patron Saint of Hemorrhoids. | ||
| Schooner | A two-masted vessel, fore-and-aft rigged on both masts | ||
| Ship-of-the-line | A ship powerful enough to take its place in the line of battle. A third rate or larger which carried guns on two or more decks. | ||
| Scrimshaw | A carving (or engraving) on whalebone, whale ivory, walrus tusk, etc., usually by American whalers. the etchings were usually darkened with lamp black or ink. | ||
| Sloop | A vessel with one fore-and-aft rigged mast | ||
| Spanish Main | Area from Caribbean to Orinoco River in Eastern Venezuela. | ||
| Stripe | A stripe was the cut left by the lash. | ||
| Swan-Shot | Big hale-shot for large fowl like the swan. | ||
| Sweats, the | Smallpox or malaria. | ||
| Tenths | The share the Lord Admiral would receive of the plunder captured by ships he issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal to. | ||
| Tattoo | A tattoo is a design in ink or some other pigment, usually decorative or symbolic, placed permanently under the skin. Tattooing is technically referred to as "micro-pigment implantation". Tattoos are a type of body modification. | ||
| Weigh | To pull up the anchor. | ||
| Worms | Shipworms (Teredo navalis) eat the hulls in warm water. they have two small shells, each about a third of an inch long, with toothed ridges, with which they tunnel into wood. The worm's body is supported by the tunnel as it bores and feeds. | ||
| Yard | A long spar, supported at its center to which the head of a square sail, lateen sail, or lugsail is bent. | ||
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