A Sea of Words
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A Sea of Words
A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O’Brian
Dean King
with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes
A Note on the Third Edition
All men owe honor to the poets—honor and awe for they are dearest to the Muse who puts upon their lips the ways of life.
—Homer, The Odyssey, book 8
I WOULD LIKE TO dedicate this final edition of A Sea of Words to Patrick O’Brian (1914-2000), creator of the Aubrey-Maturin novel series. I have added many new entries for The Hundred Days (HarperCollins, U.K.; W. W. Norton, U.S.A., 1998) and Blue at the Mizzen (1999). It is for the better understanding and enjoyment of O’Brian’s magnificent epic of the Royal Navy during the age of Napoleon that I wrote this book and Harbors and High Seas.
Macte Virtute, Patrick O’Brian.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface to the Second Edition by Dean King
Foreword by Dean King
The Royal Navy During the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War by John B. Hattendorf
King, Cabinet, and Parliament
The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty
The Admiralty Office
The Navy Board
The Ordnance Board
The Size of the Navy
Ships and Tactics
The Royal Dockyards and Ropeyards
Sea Officers: Commissioned and Warrant
Daily Life on a Warship
An Overview of the War of the French Revolution
The War of the First Coalition, 1793-1798
The War of the Second Coalition, 1799-1801
The Peace of Amiens, 1802-1803
An Overview of the Napoleonic War
The War of the Third Coalition, 1805
The Fourth Coalition, 1806-1807, and the Naval War After Trafalgar
The Fifth Coalition, 1809
The Peninsular War, 1807-1814
The War of 1812, 1812-1815
The War of the Sixth Coalition, 1812-1814
The War of the Seventh Coalition, 1815
Stephen Maturin and Naval Medicine in the Age of Sail by J. Worth Estes
Doctors and the Royal Navy
Serving at Sea
Serving on Board Hospital Ships or at Hospitals
The Disease Burden of the Royal Navy
The Medicine Chest
Trauma and Surgery
What Good Could Dr. Maturin’s Medicine Do?
Maps, Types of Sailing Ships, Ship Diagrams, and a Warship’s Boats
The Alphabetical Lexicon to the Aubrey-Maturin Novels, with Biographies of Historical Figures, Battle Accounts, and Foreign Words and Phrases
Appendix: A Time Line of the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the Fight for Independence in Chile
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
The placement of a tourniquet
Medical instruments
Map of Europe and Africa with Inset of Europe
Map of Indian Ocean
Map of East Indies with Inset
Types of Sailing Ships
The Decks and Square Sails of a 74-Gun Ship
The Fore-and-Aft Sails and Selected Rigging of a 74-Gun Ship
Masts, Sails, and Rigging
A Warship’s Boats
The Admiralty
Albatross
Auk
A ship running before the wind
Action off Camperdown
Cassowary
Captain Thomas Cochrane
Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood
The U.S.S. Constitution Defeats H.M.S. Java
Duck-billed platypus
Admiral Lord Keith
The Fleet Prison
Frigate bird
A sloop on duty near the Rock of Gibraltar
Cannon
H.M.S. Surprise cuts out the Hermione
Admiral Sir John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent
Kingfisher
The new mole at Gibraltar
Napoleon Bonaparte
Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson
Points of sailing
Maylay proas in Coupong Bay
Topmen furling a sail
A first-rate ship of the line
A ship scudding before a heavy wind
A polacca with a view of Stromboli
A tartan near Europa Point, Gibraltar
A ship beating to windward under trysails
A ship wearing
Thames wherry
A xebec near the mole at Naples
Preface to the Second Edition
The Curiosity That Patrick O’Brian Inspires in Us
WHILE WALKING FROM THE village of Buriton to Ashgrove Cottage, Stephen Maturin observes that the Hampshire landscape is “ordinary country raised to the highest power.” Indeed, the rolling, wooded South Downs of southern England are subtly splendid. But for the O’Brian reader, this countryside is raised yet another notch in its appeal—by the author in the fiction he has set there.
Readers have many reasons to rejoice in the Aubrey-Maturin novels, for Patrick O’Brian has the gift not only of raising the ordinary to a higher power but of making the extraordinary human. In his central characters we admire their honor, dignity, skills, and knowledge, and we empathize with their foibles and flaws. In his plots we escape into a world where etiquette and order seem to rule, relishing for instance the formalities of a Navy officers’ banquet—and the inevitable transgression of those formalities—and where even war has its civilities. And of course O’Brian, his sense of humor never curtailed, frequently sends us into fits of laughter.
Of all things we admire, though, the most rewarding is perhaps the curiosity that O’Brian inspires in us. For me, these novels have sparked many learning adventures, among them visits to Mystic Seaport, where I saw a capstan turned to a shanty and watched a mainsail unbent, to the Musée de la Marine in Paris, which displays spectacular 15-foot-tall ship models, and to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where the Battle of Trafalgar recurs in a narrated panorama through the stern window of a French first rate. On my way down to Portsmouth for a stroll on the decks of Nelson’s Victory (whose round tumblehome greatly increased my appreciation for Maturin’s shipboarding talents), I even stopped in the village of Buriton.
It is in The Reverse of the Medal that Maturin alights here from the Portsmouth night coach one fine morning for a walk across the fields and through the woods to Ashgrove. I quickly discovered why, in addition to its proximity, he might have paid an extra three shillings to be dropped off in this quaint farming village. The famous historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), who lived in a manor house by the pond and across from the Norman rectory, once wrote, “No more typical scene of 18th century England could be found.” It’s still true today.
After eating a “full-cooked” English breakfast at the Master Robert Inn—a walker’s meal if ever there was one—I visited the village’s peaceful flint-wall Norman church. The morning sun glistened on the dew-soaked tombstones as I prepared to strike off over the fields. Soon the sign for the South Downs Way, a national footpath, pointed up a tree-covered cart track, and I took it. As I dodged the deep, muddy ruts of the track, a covey of pheasants burst from a ragged hedge onto a cow pasture.
At the top of the cart track, I reached a lane guarded by two gnarly, silver-barked beech trees whose sagging branches were weighted by the half centuries they had seen. This was a lane that meandered over hills, through forests, and past farms. It was a lane for pleasant walking, and as my goal was to discover what I could about Ashgrove Cottage, a fictional place, I took my time. Like Maturin I was alone,
and I did as I pleased. That included savoring ripe blackberries beside the road.
Soon I heard the clopping of horses. Around the bend, on big brown mounts, came four women in field boots and riding caps. Out front a perky, unblinking brunette greeted me with an irrepressible “Hello,” long on the first syllable. Behind her, side by side, were a sturdy, upright blond and a stout, silver-haired matron, the very countenance of the landed gentry, and bringing up the rear, a plumpish youngster. Surely, I thought, this was the Williams family out for a day’s ride. As I stifled a sudden desire to ask if they knew of a certain Jack and Sophie Aubrey, it occurred to me how delightful it is to go in search of fact and find fiction.
Eventually I reached Butser Hill, the highest point on the South Downs Way, and, looking south over the rippling Downs, I fancied I could make out Spithead and the Isle of Wight, just as Aubrey could from his observatory. My journey was well rewarded, and I couldn’t help but think of Maturin’s words as he traversed the same countryside: “ ‘Why do I feel such an intense pleasure, such an intense satisfaction?’ ... [H]e searched for a convincing reply, but finding none he observed ‘The fact is I do’ ” (The Reverse of the Medal, p. 178). I’m sure that Maturin’s profound curiosity and the opportunity to carelessly, purely indulge it were at least part of that intense satisfaction.
Indeed, curiosity seems to be a staple characteristic of O’Brian readers. From the comments and inquiries that poured in after the initial publication of A Sea of Words, it became apparent that the book had merely wetted that curiosity. Hence, Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Aubrey-Maturin Novels, which explores the routes and the places where O’Brian leads his characters, and Every Man Will Do His Duty, an anthology of firsthand accounts from the men who fought the battles. Among them are Thomas Cochrane’s account of the cruise of the Speedy, upon which much of the action of Master and Commander is based, as well as accounts of the Glorious First of June, the battles of Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar, and the frigate action between the United States and the Macedonian.
The second edition of A Sea of Words simply attempts to answer many more of the questions generated in reading these thought-provoking novels: What are the marthambles, and is there a historical basis for the chelengk that Aubrey receives from the Grand Turk? Who is Maturin’s famous patient the Duke of Clarence, and who the remarkable, precocious British prime minister William Pitt the Younger? On which days were honorary salutes required of all British warships, and what precipitated the Gordon Riots?
In this edition you will find many more entries regarding natural history, music, geography, and actions of the Napoleonic wars and the War of 1812. There are entries from The Commodore and The Yellow Admiral, neither of which was published when the first edition of A Sea of Words came out. This edition also refocuses on what I consider to be the seminal book of the series, Post Captain.
In this second edition you will also find many more translations of foreign words and phrases. In cases where passages have several foreign phrases together or near one another, the whole string has been translated together with ellipses linking them, so that by looking up the first foreign word of the passage, you will find all of the necessary translations. The new “Time Line of the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the Fight for Independence in Chile” (see the appendix, page 483) should help readers place the events of the novels in the context of the history of the era.
I humbly confess to a number of corrections as well and thank all of the well-informed amateurs and experts who kindly wrote to suggest additions and modifications and to pose questions. With the help of the learned professors John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes, these suggestions and queries have been addressed whenever possible.
Of course, there is much more relevant, fascinating information that simply would not fit into this one book, nor half a dozen like it. But it is my hope that A Sea of Words will continue to inspire readers to read and reread O’Brian, to explore the many great fiction and non-fiction books written about the period, and to set off on their own adventures of discovery, traversing the landscapes and seeing in person the important places and artifacts of this great age of history, one that Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels so brilliantly bring to life for us.
—Dean King
Foreword
Dean King
“NO MAN COULD EASILY surpass me in ignorance of naval terms,” claims Stephen Maturin early on in Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian’s first Aubrey-Maturin novel. Indeed, Maturin’s continuing ignorance of the ways of the sea and nautical terminology is one of the chief sources of humor in the series—and a very clever one, for it allows us, in our own ignorance of 18th-century naval cant, to associate ourselves with the novels’ paragon of intelligence.
“ ‘So that is a mainstay,’ said Stephen, looking at it vaguely. ‘I have often heard them mentioned. A stout-looking rope, indeed.’ ” Likewise confronted, we can imagine ourselves uttering these lines with Maturin’s boggled look and feigned disinterest. Later, in Post Captain, Maturin wistfully concludes, “ ‘Your mariner is an honest fellow, none better; but he is sadly given to jargon.’ ”
When reading the Aubrey-Maturin novels, the question “How much vocabulary do I really need to know?” inevitably arises, and it recurs again and again. If you’re anything like me—a certified lubber—you raced through the first three novels glued to the plots, inventing definitions, or what you convinced yourself were at least reasonable approximations, and reassuring yourself at each instance of Maturin’s touching lubberliness.
The fact is you don’t have to know more about the historical and nautical background to enjoy these books. But there comes a time when most of us suddenly realize we want to know more. Cross-catharpings? Lord Keith? Mauritius? Part of the great beauty of these tales is that they spark a thirst for knowledge; suddenly an era that initially seemed very remote—that of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars—becomes very immediate. I found myself wanting to know more almost every time I turned the page. What I needed were maps and nautical manuals, instructive illustrations, and historical essays. There definitely was no one good source.
What I found when I began researching this companion book, however, was a great wealth of resources right here in the United States. Both the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and the New York Yacht Club in New York City, for instance, were able to provide me with editions of Falconer’s Universal Dictionary of the Marine and The Naval Chronicles, the very volumes that O’Brian so studiously pores over in writing his books.
Even more important to the success of this venture was that two eminent American scholars of the period—John Hattendorf, Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island, and Worth Estes, Professor of Pharmacology at Boston University—agreed to contribute essays and review the text. Hattendorf’s “The Royal Navy During the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War” and Estes’s “Stephen Maturin and Naval Medicine in the Age of Sail” are invaluable to anyone who wishes to better understand the Aubrey-Maturin era.
Of course, understanding the full meaning of every term O’Brian uses would take the better part of a career. And this is not necessary to enjoy the books. But even a humble attempt to learn more enhances the reading experience. It brings us closer to the author’s passion both for the age of Admiral Lord Nelson and for the very act of exploring that time. When you open this book, I hope that your imagination calls up the smell of the musty volumes of The Naval Chronicles, the feel of their rough-trimmed pages and of the thin layers of rice paper that for two centuries have attempted, often successfully, to keep the ink of the wonderful engravings in place.
The excitement of peeling back time and existing in the past, a thrill that O’Brian has so obviously reveled in for decades, can be experienced by better grasping the primary tools with which that past was preserved: words, many now out of use, with connotations fast
fading. And when a sailor admonishes Maturin and Martin to “mind the paintwork.... They would not like to have the barky mistaken for a Newcastle collier,” it’s gratifying, if not essential, to know that a “barky” was sailor slang for a vessel well liked by her crew and that a “collier” was a bluff-bowed and broad-sterned ship originally intended to carry coal.
A few things must be said about this companion book. First, no claim can be made of comprehensiveness. Our survey of O’Brian’s books found more than 8,000 words that could use defining for modern readers, including the names of some 400 ships, 500 people, and 1,200 places. Obviously we had to focus our efforts, and we chose nautical, medical, and natural history terms, though we didn’t limit ourselves to those.
Second, we have tried to use as little jargon as possible in describing the terms. But we haven’t sidestepped it entirely. You will quickly pick up the basic terminology that recurs in the definitions of the more specialized words. In that way, the learning of sailing terminology grows exponentially. You build with each new term, and before you know it, it all crystallizes. You have ascended through the morass of rigging to the maintop, and as you look down, the ship becomes a coherent organic entity. At that point the vocabulary becomes manageable. The act of, say, “hauling in the cable and fishing the best bower at the starboard cathead” is easily recognizable as pulling in the anchor and hanging it on the bow, indeed, a specific anchor on a specific part of the bow.
Third, O’Brian uses a variety of spellings and hyphenations for many words, so it pays to be a little flexible when searching for a term in A Sea of Words. Also, a word that appears in many forms in the books probably does not appear in all of those forms here. For instance, we define “spanker” and “boom” but leave it to the reader to resolve “spanker-boom” (the boom of the spanker). Also, when O’Brian himself provides an explanation for a term in the text, we usually do not redefine it, simply to save precious space for the many other terms.
Finally, there is more than one way to use this book. Looking up words as you go is rewarding, but browsing through the lexicon to familiarize yourself with the lingo in between book readings is perhaps even better. Part of the beauty of O’Brian’s books is the deft way in which he weaves the languages of the sea and science into the narrative. Stopping to consult a reference book too frequently disturbs the intimacy between reader and tale, and between reader and author.