Part 2

We do not know exactly what instruments the old shipmasters carried with them on these voyages, but we do know that they were comparatively few and very inferior to those in use today. An idea of the paucity in some instances may be obtained from the story of the ship _Hannah_, condemned at Christiansand in 1810, in the protest of American shipmasters which is now preserved in the New Haven Historical Society collections. It reads: "We, the undersigned masters of American vessels now in the port of Christiansand, having heard with astonishment that one of the principal charges against the American brig _Hannah_, from Boston, bound direct to Riga, and condemned at the prize court at this place, is as follows,--that the said court have pronounced it absolutely impossible to cross the Atlantic without a chart or sextant. We therefore feel fully authorized to assert that we have frequently made voyages from America without the above articles, and we are fully persuaded that every seaman with common nautical knowledge can do the same."

No doubt many valuable data lie hidden in old log-books and sea journals, early newspaper files, shipping records of old business houses and elsewhere. To anyone with time and the inclination for research a fascinating field is open where material of historical and scientific value may be found. The writer is not aware that any such investigations have been made or accounts of any published.

Accurate knowledge of the instruments carried by Colonial shipmasters on their voyages to the West Indies or along our coast and across the Atlantic would be of much interest, and still more to know what were supplied by owners or carried as their personal property by masters and supercargoes for the longer voyages to Russia, the Mediterranean, Africa, India, China, and the South Seas. It would be interesting to know, besides this, what had been their experiences with them: the accuracy of observations, how the compass behaved, etc. The early nineteenth century shipmasters were close observers, and in his works on navigation Lieut. M. F. Maury pays them high compliment for the valuable assistance rendered in furnishing notes and observations on currents, shoals, coast lines, compass variations and winds, for the charts and sailing directions which he compiled.

With these things in mind this paper has been prepared, hoping that someone may be encouraged to take up the work systematically. It is a subject which seems to have been neglected, and the results certainly will repay much time devoted to its investigation.

End of Project Gutenberg's Old-Time Nautical Instruments, by John Robinson