Ships Accounts

As the name of this blog suggests, I like to mine the past for information, and this is worth a dig.

Ships accounts/stores from the 18th century.

Some of it might take some interpretation, though. The transcript of one sheet is:
Account of Stores for the Brigg Saley

logg Real & lines Doppy lad & line
long & short mesures Lantorns & funels
3 hand pumps Hamer & Nales & lether
granes & Harpons fishing hooks & lines pames
Nedles & twine glases minuet and 1/2 Dozen Half
our glases Spike Nales of Defront Sises
gimblets lades & tormanters one or too hatchets
a Sarwing malet woding Boles Knifes
forkes & Spunes a Cabine table Candles
& oyl Pots for the Long Bots Padlocks
Scales & wates a pare of Small Stilards
Corking iorns and Serapors hand Spikes
Seedor Pales Lime for the Cumboos

Minuet I assume is minute, and the glasses for measuring time. Tormanters? Serapors?

Cumboos? We could people a fantasy novel with them. "Tho Tormanters are coming! Invoke the serapors. Arm the cumboos!"

Another document is the articles, ie the agreement before sailing, which lists the men and the money they're paid before sailing, and the pay per month. It seems pretty good for the time. The carpenter, for example, Abraham Hawkins, is paid 148 pounds advance, then 50 pounds a month if I read it right. Or perhaps it was an either or.

Jo :)

Read an excerpt from The Secret Duke here.