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The trembling hull confefs'd th' enormous ftroke; The cralhing boats th' impetuous prdTure broke : Companion m , binn acle', in floating wreck, With compaffes and glaffes ftrew'd the deck; The mizen rendin g, from the bolt-rope' flew, T orn from the earin g to the flutt'rin g cl ue :. The fides convul five ihook on groaning beams', And yawning wide, expand the pitchy ' fea ms. They found the well ' and, terrible to hear I Along the line four wetted feet appear : At either pump they heave the clafiiing brake ', And, turn by turn, th' ungrateful office take ; They both in clofe rotation fiill attend, And help incetfant, nervous Seamen lend ;
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Navy as servant to a purser. After being so A page from Falconer's poem The Shipwreck, dramatically separated from his ship and published in 1762. returning to the merchant navy, Falconer took up the pen and wrote The Shipwreck. A Poem I n Three Cantos. By a Sailor. He dedicated it to Edward, the Duke of York, Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, thereby earning himself a patron. His desire to convey the progress ofa ship at sea to a landbound audience must have driven him to m The companion is a fquare wooden porcht cretled over the hatchway, that goea. frustration, for he begins The Shipwreck clown to the cabbin or apartment of the chief office rs. • The binnacle is a box which (lands before the hel m on deck, having three divifions, with the following "Advertisement": the middle one for a lamp or candle, and the other two for the compaJfes which Jire& The Author of this Poem thinks it necthe Ship's courfe and the watch-glalfes. essary to acquaint the Public, that it was • The bolt-rope furrounds or gins all fails, their edges being fewed to it: in fquare fails not his first Intention to swell the Work it is difiinguiflied by three names, viz. head-rope or upper part ; leeches or fides; and foot .ropes or bottoms. with so many Notes; to avoid which he P Beams are !hong pieces of timber flretching acrofs the Ship, to keep the fides at· proposed to refer his Readers to any of their proper diflance, and (upport the d~cks . the modern Dictionaries, which he • Becaufe the feams or junllio ns of the planks are fill ed w jth pit ch, to prevent the might find most proper for explaining water from penetrating the deck or fides. r The pump~wel! is an apartment in the Ship's hold that contains the main--malt and the sea-phrases, occasionally mentioned pumps, and is planked round, to keep the cargo clear of the pum ps : jr is fou nded by in the Poem; but upon strict Examinaletting a mtafured iron rod and I.inc down the pump, by which, they know. whether the tion, finding most of them deficient in leaks increafe or diminilh, the technical Terms exp ressed there, he • The brake is the pump· ha ndle, which is occafiooally fixed and taken oft'. could not reco mmend them , withour forfeiting his claim to the Capacity assumed in the Title Page, of which he is much more tenacious than of his Character as a Poet. In addition to a detailed sheet of "An use the term, for the scope of the book is my love of ships and the sea, gave me a fine Elevation of a Merchant-Ship with all her encyclopedic in its treatment of matters leather-bound copy of Falconer's D ictioMasts, Yards, Sails & Rigging" and a map naval and nautical, and it is universally nary, one of the 1769 originals; the inside of the islands of Greece through which his accepted as the standard for understanding of the front cover carried a lone Ex Libris fictional ship sails, showing wind direction life and work in the sailing navy in his era. bearing the name Frederick J. 0. Montagu and the course of the ship, many pages are The preparation of this monumental and a family coat of arms. I would like to substantially taken up with footnotes that work had bee n far from a secret, for the believe that my copy is the very same secdescribe the des ign and work of a ship. opening pages list the names of more than ond book subscribed to by Lieut. Montagu Following the 1762 publication of this 200 advance subscribers, a practice not which was then passed on by him to a slender volume, he diligently pursued the uncommon for books of that era. These member of his fami ly. so urce of his frustration-the lack of a subscribers included royalty, dukes and How does one go about describing such dictionary that cogently and accurately de- earls, naval and governmenr leaders, mer- a book, containing as it does thousands of scribed the life he knew as a sailor. Through chant trading companies and lay persons . marine terms, some in a few words, others York's patronage, he served in the Royal The list is headed by two sons of King in verirable trea tises covering several pages? Navy as a midshipman on Sir Edward George III, Their Royal Highnesses the Perhaps it would be best to start with a few Hawke'sRoyal George and then as purser of Dukes of G loucester and Cumberland. statistics. The volume measures 9" by 11 " the frigate Glory. When Glory was laid up at The naval persons included the Right Hon. and contains roughly 500 pages (they are C hath am, Falco ner, by now married, Sir Edward H awke, KB, First Lord of the not numbered) . The final 100 pages or so moved into the captain's cabin with his Admiralty. In his preface, Falconer ac- are given over to a French-to-English dicnew wife and spent his time writing, re- knowledged the support and encourage- tionary of marine and naval words and turning to sea in 1767. ment of Admiral Hawke, who believed phrases, nearly al l limited to a single line. In The culmination of Falconer's efforts chat the book would be of extensive value all there are about four thousand of these came in 1769 with the publication ofa large to "a country whose principal sources of word translations designed to assist in workvolume entidedA n Universal Dictionary of strength are derived from the superioriry of ing with pilots or other persons in marine the Marine dedicated to The Right Honor- her marine." occupations. The book also contains a dozen able the Lords Commissioner for executing Another name caught my attention, etched fold-out plates illustrating some of the office of Lord High Admiral of Great that of Lieut. Thomas Montagu, who sub- the major subjects Falconer wrote about. Britain. Let it be said at th e outset chat che scribed to not one, bur two copies of the The larges t of these measure 15" by 19" wo rd " dictionary" is a misnomer as we now book. Many years ago, my sister, knowing when fully unfolded.
SEA HISTORY 99, WINTER 2001-02
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