style="font-size:15px;"> ADDLINGS. Accumulated 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 space 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 passed.
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 sextant, 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 entitled to receive under the policy, when the ship is lost.
ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPASS. 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 mass, on each separate compass 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 assistant to field-officers. The term has been applied to an assistant captain of a fleet. It is indeed the duty performed by first lieutenants.
ADMEASUREMENT. The calculation of proportions according to assumed rules, often ignorantly practised in estimating the tonnage of a ship.
ADMIRAL. The derivation of this noble title 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 title 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 constituted 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 title 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 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,
