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 principal 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 principal vessel in the cod and whale fisheries. That which arrives first in any port of Newfoundland retains this title 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 shell 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 constitution 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 assembled, under the authority of the board or its chief.
ADMIRALTY BLACK-BOOK. See Black-book.
ADMIRALTY COURT. The constitution of this court relatively to the legislative power of the king in council, is analogous 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 shore 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 passed 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.
ADVANCED POST. A spot of ground seized by a party to secure their front. A piquet or outpost.
ADVANCED SQUADRON. One on the look-out.—Advance, or vanguard, that division of a force which is next the enemy, or which marches before a body.—Advance fosse, a ditch of water round the esplanade or glacis of a fortification.—Advance! the order to marines and small-arm men to move forward.
ADVANCE-LIST. The register by which two months' wages to the crew are paid, on first commission, and a quarter's to officers.
ADVANCEMENT. Promotion to higher rank.
ADVANCE MONEY. In men-of-war and most merchant ships the advance of two months' wages is given to the crew, previous to going to sea; the clearing off of which is called working up the dead horse.
ADVANCE NOTE. A document issued by owners of a ship or their agents, promising to pay a seaman, or to his order, a sum of money in part of his wages, within a certain number of days after he has sailed in the ship. Advance notes are quite negotiable before a seaman has taken his departure.
ADVANTAGE, or Vantage-ground. That which gives superiority of attack on, or defence against, an enemy; affording means of annoyance or resistance.
ADVENTURE. An enterprise in which something is left to hazard.—A bill of adventure is one signed by the merchant, by which he takes the chances of the voyage.
ADVERSARY. Generally applied to an enemy, but strictly an opponent in single combat.
ADVERSE. The opposite of favourable; as, an adverse wind.
ADVICE-BOAT. A small fast-sailing vessel in advance of a fleet, employed to carry intelligence with all possible despatch. They were first used in 1692, to gain tidings of what was transacting in Brest, previous to the battle of La Hogue.
ADVOCATE GENERAL. An officer of the High Court of Admiralty, whose duty it is to appear for the lord high-admiral in that court, the court of delegates, or any other wherein his rights are concerned.—Judge-advocate of the navy, a law officer appointed to watch over and direct proceedings connected with courts-martial.—Deputy judge-advocate, an appointment made by the sudden selection of some secretary, or captain's clerk, to perform the duty at a court-martial (where no legal person is empowered), utterly ignorant of the law or the customs of the naval service.
ADZE, or Addice. A cutting tool of the axe kind, for dubbing flat and circular work, much used by shipwrights, especially by the Parsee builders in India, with whom it serves for axe, plane, and chisel. It is a curious fact that from the polar regions to the equator, and southerly throughout Polynesia, this instrument and its peculiar adaptations, whether made of iron, basalt, nephrite, &c., all preserve the same idea or identity of conception.
ÆINAUTÆ. Senators of Miletus, who held their deliberations on board ship.
ÆRATÆ. Ancient ships fitted with brazen prows.
AEROLITES. One of the many names given to those solid masses or stones which occasionally fall from the atmosphere to the surface of the earth. The assumption of their periodicity cannot, as yet, be considered as confirmed.
AEROLOGY. The rational doctrine or science of the air and its phenomena.
AEROMANCY. Formerly the art of divining by the air, but now used for foretelling the changes in the weather, either by experience or by instruments.
AEROMETRY. The science