hey are full of initiative training. Indeed they
may all be advantageously consulted, for honey is not the less sweet
because it is gathered from many flowers; and I have freely availed
myself of their various works, as far as they go, though I have adopted
no term without holding myself responsible for its actuality. Such a
vaunt may be considered to savour of the _parturiunt montes_ apothegm,
but the reader may confidently rest assured that whatever shortcomings
he may detect they are not the result of negligence.

It has been pronounced that such lexicography may be too diffuse; that
to describe the track of every particular rope through its different
channels, however requisite for seamen, would be useless and
unintelligible to a landsman. But surely nothing can be considered
useless which tends directly to information, nor can that be
unintelligible which is clearly defined. Moreover, such a work may be so
carried out as not only to be instructive in professional minutiae, but
also to be a vehicle for making us acquainted with the rules which
guided the seamen of former times, thereby affording an insight into
those which are likely to direct them in their own.

From the causes already stated, my project of a full sailor's dictionary
fell to the ground; yet in course of time, and at the age of
seventy-seven, finding leisure at last on hand, I thought it feasible to
work my materials into a sort of maritime glossary. The objects of such
a digest are to afford a ready reference to young or old, professional
or non-professional, persons, who by consulting it may obtain an instant
answer to a given question. Now although many of the explanations may be
superfluous to some seamen, still they may lead others to a right
understanding of various brackish expressions and phrases, without
having to put crude queries, many of which those inquired of might be
unable to solve. Nor is it only those afloat who are to be thus
considered; all the empire is more or less connected with its navy and
its commerce, and nautical phraseology is thereby daily becoming more
habitual with all classes of the lieges than of erst. Even our
parliamentary orators, with a proper national bias, talk of swamping a
measure, danger ahead, taking the wind out of an antagonist's sails,
drifting into war, steering a bill through the shoals of opposition or
throwing it overboard, following in the wake of a leader, trimming to
the breeze, tiding a questio