oes not cease with
any particular service.

PERMIT. A license to sell goods that have paid the duties or excise.

PERPENDICLE. The plumb-line of the old quadrant.

PERPENDICULAR. A right line falling from or standing upon another
vertically, and making the angle of 90 deg. on both sides.

PERRY. An old term for a sudden squall.

PERSONNEL. A word adopted from the French, and expressive of all the
officers and men, civil and military, composing an army or a naval
force.

PERSPECTIVE. The old term for a hand telescope. Also, the science by
which objects are delineated according to their natural appearance and
situation.

PERSUADER. A rattan, colt, or rope's end in the hands of a boatswain's
mate. Also, a revolver.

PERTURBATIONS. The effects of the attractions of the heavenly bodies
upon each other, whereby they are sometimes drawn out of their elliptic
paths about the central body, as instanced by the wondrous discovery of
Neptune.

PESAGE. A custom or duty paid for weighing merchandise, or other goods.

PESETA, OR PISTOREEN. A Spanish silver coin: one-fifth of a piastre.

PESSURABLE, OR PESTARABLE, of our old statutes, implied such merchandise
as take up much room in a ship.

PETARD. A hat-shaped metal machine, holding from 6 to 9 lbs. of
gunpowder; it is firmly fixed to a stout plank, and being applied to a
gate or barricade, is fired by a fuse, to break or blow it open. (_See_
POWDER-BAGS.)

PETARDIER. The man who fixes and fires a petard, a service of great
danger.

PET-COCK. A tap, or valve on a pump.

PETER. _See_ BLUE PETER.

PETER-BOAT. A fishing-boat of the Thames and Medway, so named after St.
Peter, as the patron of fishermen, whose cross-keys form part of the
armorial bearings of the Fishmongers' Company of London. These boats
were first brought from Norway and the Baltic; they are generally short,
shallow, and sharp at both ends, with a well for fish in the centre, 25
feet over all, and 6 feet beam, yet in such craft boys were wont to
serve out seven years' apprenticeship, scarcely ever going on shore.

PETER-MAN, OR PETERER. A fisherman. Also, the Dutch fishing vessels that
frequented our eastern coast.

PETITORY SUITS. Causes of property, formerly cognizable in the admiralty
court.

PETREL. The _Cypselli_ of the ancients, and _Mother Cary's chickens_ of
sailors; of the genus _Procellaria_. They collect in numbers at the
approach of a gale, running along the waves in the wake of a