nabob The title for the deputy governors of provinces in the Mogul Empire of India; a governor of a town or district in India. Also, a person returning from India having made a large fortune there; thus, a wealthy, prominent, and luxurious person. A wealthy passenger in an EAST INDIAMAN.
naevus or nevus A purplish, often raised, congenital skin growth or birthmark; a mole.
Naiad, H.M.S. A 38-gun fifth rate, built in 1797, that had a distinguished career and fought under Captain Thomas Dundas in the battle at TRAFALGAR, where she served as the eyes of the fleet. Broken up in 1898, she was the longest-lived of the TRAFALGAR ships except for VICTORY.
Namur, H.M.S. A 1697 second rate that was wrecked in 1749. Another second rate by the same name, with 90 guns, was built in 1756 and fought in many battles, including Louisbourg in 1758, Havana in 1762, the Saintes in 1782, and St. Vincent in 1797. Cut down to a 74-gun third rate in 1805, she was placed in harbor service in 1807 and was eventually broken up in 1833.
Nancy Dawson A popular ship name that came from a dancer in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. The rune she danced to was popular with seamen during the 18th century, and tradition holds that the song was played to summon sailors for their daily issue of GROG, which was itself then sometimes called Nancy Dawson by sailors.
nankeen A kind of cotton cloth, originally made at Nanking, the chief city of the province of Kiangsu in China, from a yellow variety of cotton.
Nantz or Nantes The seaport of Nantes in western France near the mouth of the Loire River was a center of the slave trade. Also known for its brandy.
Napier’s bones Thin pieces of bone, ivory, or wood marked with numbers and used as a mathematical aid according to the method of John Napier of Merchiston (1550-1617), the inventor of LOGARITHMS.
napoleon A 20-franc gold coin issued by NAPOLEON I (1769-1821).
NAPOLEON I (Napoleon Bonaparte or Napoleone Buonaparte) (1769-1821) Born at Ajaccio, Corsica, Napoleon was sent with his older brother, Joseph, to school in France in 1778. In 1784 he moved to Paris, where he studied at the Ecole Militaire for a year before being commissioned into an artillery regiment. At various garrison stations, Napoleon, who excelled at science and mathematics and possessed a remarkable memory, continued his studies in military history and theory. An ardent Corsican nationalist despite his French education, he supported Paoli until a bitter dispute with that leader forced Napoleon to flee with his widowed mother and siblings to southern France in 1793.
Napoleon welcomed the French Revolution in 1789. In 1793 he commanded the artillery at Toulon and received deserved credit for defeating British troops occupying that key port. This led to his promotion to Brigadier General, igniting a meteoric rise to power. After defeating a Royalist mob in Paris in 1795, Napoleon was appointed commander of the Army of the Interior, from whence he was appointed to the command of the Army of Italy in 1796. His Italian Campaign was highly successful, forcing the Austrians to seek peace and ingratiating him with leaders in Paris by providing a stream of booty. Le Petit Caporal, as he was affectionately known, also became the hero of his soldiers.
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, known fondly as le Petit Caporal and contemptuously as Puss-in-Boots (mezzotint by G. W. H. Ritchie, after a painting by Jacques-Louis David)
Following a campaign in and around Egypt, where he was dogged by NELSON (at the Battle of the NILE) and by Sir William Sidney SMITH, Napoleon secretly left his stalled army and returned to Paris. In 1799 the opportunistic general emerged from the coup d’état of Brumaire—along with the Abbe Sieves and Roger Ducos as co-Consuls. He then forced his fellow conspirators out of power and became the de facto supreme ruler of France. To consolidate his popularity, and thus his rule, Napoleon moved quickly. With victories over the Austrians and on the German front, he crumbled the Second Coalition, causing the downfall of Prime Minister William PUT in England and bringing on the Peace of AMIENS. Napoleon had ended a decade of bloodshed and secured his own preeminence in France as a peacemaker.
In 1803-4, Napoleon established his Civil Code, retooling the economy and governance of France. In 1804 the Consul for Life proclaimed himself Emperor of France. The Pope attended the coronation, but Napoleon insisted on placing the crown on his own head and on the head of his wife Josephine, whom he had married in 1796. (He eventually divorced Josephine after she failed to produce a child; the Emperor would have a son by the Austrian Archduchess Maria Luisa in 1811.) War had broken out again in 1803, and Napoleon’s Grand Armee knifed into central Germany, winning a major victory over the Austro-Russian Army at Austerlitz in 1805. In a costly campaign, Napoleon subdued Russia in 1807, marking the height of his power (though not the size of his empire, which would not peak until 1810 with his marriage to Archduchess Maria Luisa). Soon France was at war in Portugal and Spain, and, with his forces spread too thin, Napoleon began losing control of his realm. England gained footholds on the Peninsula, tying down great numbers of French troops. Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 sealed his fate. Prussia and Sweden joined Russia in a counteroffensive in the east, and Wellington attacked from the west, as the Allies overwhelmed the weakened French conscripts. Paris fell on March 30, 1814. Napoleon adbicated at Fontainebleau and was exiled to the island of Elba. On March 1, 1815, he returned to Paris with popular support. With war imminent, he marched into Belgium, and on June 18, 1815, at Waterloo, his army fell to the Duke of Wellington’s. Napoleon was condemned to live out his final years on the remote island of ST. HELENA.
narwhal See MONODON MONOCEROS.
nata mecum consule Buteo Born with me at the time of Bute’s consulship (i.e., prime ministership), Latin. (Romans often referred to years past by the name of the Consul who was then serving his one-year term. John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, was Prime Minister of Britain from May 1762 to April 1763.)
Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris Founded by Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811), who held the office of Astronomer Royal for 46 years from 1765. In that year, the Board of Longitude authorized publication of the Almanac. The first volume was issued in 1765 for use in 1767. Published annually since that time, it provides astronomical data to seamen for use in finding a ship’s position when out of sight of land. The main table gives angular distances between the moon’s center and certain fixed stars and the sun, at intervals in Greenwich time. The Almanac, along with the sextant, made the use of lunar distances at sea a practical method of finding longitude.
nautical mile See SEA MILE.
Naval Chronicle, The A monthly journal published from 1799 to 1818 that detailed actions involving the Royal Navy during the two Napoleonic wars and the War of 1812, along with other naval and maritime topics. Naval officers, including NELSON and COLLINGWOOD, contributed accounts or biographical sketches. Illustrative prints and detailed maps accompanied many stories. In O’Brian’s Post Captain, both Sophia and Diana visit Admiral Haddock to brush up on nautical matters after Aubrey moves into Melbury Lodge. The Admiral refers them to the 1801 edition of The Naval Chronicle, probably meaning one of the biannually collected volumes.
nave-line A line used to support the TRUSS when it has been overhauled.
naveta or navetta A chambered, megalithic tomb from the Bronze Age (4000-3000 B.C.) in the shape of an upturned boat, found on the island of MINORCA (Catalan).
Navy Board Established under Henry VIII in the mid-16th century, a commission under the Lord High Admiral that supplied and administered the British Navy until 1832, when it was merged into the Board of ADMIRALTY.
Navy List An official publication issued by the London publisher Steele from 1780 to 1815 containing a list of the officers of the Navy and other information.
Navy Office The headquarters of the NAVY BOARD at Somerset House, the Strand.
neap or neap tide A tide occurring shortly after the first and third quarters of the moon, when the moon and sun are at a right angle to each other, in which the difference between the high-and low-water levels is least. To be neaped is to run aground at the height of a SPRING TIDE, which is the opposite of the neap tide, the difference between the high-and low-water levels being greatest, and be forced to await the next spring tide to get afloat again.
neat’s leather Leather made from the hides of neat cattle, the common domestic bovine.
necessary-bottle Urinal.
neep A turnip.
negus A drink invented by Colonel Francis Negus (d. 1732), consisting of wine, especially port or sherry, hot water, sugar, lemon juice, and spices.
NELSON, HORATIO, FIRST VISCOUNT (1758-1805)
Few people, wrote Alfred Mahan in his great biography of Nelson, “are those whose departure is as well timed as their appearance, who do not survive the instant of perfected success, to linger on subjected to the searching tests of common life, but pass from our ken in a blaze of glory which thenceforth forever encircles their names.” Nelson was born at a time when great military leadership was of crucial importance to Great Britain, and he was clearly driven to achieve that “blaze of glory.”
England’s legendary naval hero was born at Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk on September 29, 1758. At age 12, he went to sea aboard H.M.S. Raisonnable. By the age of 20, he was made POST-CAPTAIN while serving in the WEST INDIES. In 1793, after five years on half-pay, Nelson returned to sea as Captain of the AGAMEMNON. At the siege of Calvi in 1794, he lost his right eye, but the aggressive Captain was promoted to COMMODORE and given the larger 74-gun Captain. On February 14, 1797, at the battle of CAPE ST. VINCENT, 15 British SHIPS OF THE LINE, including Nelson’s, under the command of Sir John JERVIS, defeated a fleet of 27 Spanish ships of the line. Nelson was instrumental in the taking of four PRIZES, boarding two of them himself. Less than a week after the battle, he became Rear-Admiral of the Blue by seniority. In July of that year, Nelson lost his right arm during a failed attempt to take a Spanish treasure ship at Santa Cruz, Tenerife, in the CANARY ISLANDS.
After he recovered from the wound, Nelson’s next major feat occurred in the Mediterranean, where he hunted down and devastated a French fleet under Admiral Francois Brueys at the battle of the NILE in ABOUKIR Bay, on August 1, 1798. Nelson was again the hero at the battle of COPENHAGEN, in April of 1801, where he disregarded orders from the fleet commander, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, to end the engagement and instead pressed on to victory. Subsequently, Parker was recalled by the ADMIRALTY while Nelson was made COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF and a viscount.
Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson. (Reproduced from Alfred Mahan’s Life of Nelson, 1897, courtesy of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia)
After blockading TOULON for two years and shadowing the French fleet across the Atlantic, Nelson, aboard the VICTORY, finally had his ultimate showdown near Cape TRAFALGAR, on the southwest coast of Spain, on October 21, 1805. Inspired by his famous flag signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty,” Nelson’s force crushed a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral VILLENEUVE. It was the last great fleet battle of the age, and it was the fearless admiral’s last fight. He was mortally wounded by a marksman aboard the French Redoubtable. Nelson’s last words were reportedly, “Thank God I have done my duty.”
“It is the appointed lot of some of History’s chosen few to come upon the scene at the moment when a great tendency is nearing its crisis and culmination,” wrote Mahan. “Specially gifted with qualities needed to realize the fulness of its possibilities, they so identify themselves with it by their deeds that they thenceforth personify to the world the movement which brought them forth, and of which their own achievements are at once the climax and the most dazzling illustration.”
Nelson chequer A famous pattern for the painting of ships that was favored by NELSON. The sides and port-lids were black, and yellow streaks marked each deck of guns, the black port-lids creating a checkered pattern.
nepenthe A drink or drug used by the ancients to bring forgetfulness of trouble or grief, possibly containing OPIUM as its active ingredient. A drug possessing such sedative properties.
Nereide, H.M.S. A 36-gun fifth-rate ship captured from the French in 1797 by H.M.S. PHOEBE off the SCILLIES. Recaptured by the French in August 1810 at MAURITIUS and four months later once again captured from the French, still at Mauritius. She laid up there until she was sold in 1816. In O’Brian’s The Mauritius Command, Jack Aubrey is the COMMODORE of the British forces who retake the ship. (She was named for the Nereides, who in Greek legend were the 50 daughters of Nereus and Doris and were all nymphs of the sea.)
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior I don’t know, but I feel it happening and I am tormented (Latin; from a poem by Catullus).
Nessus The centaur slain by Hercules and whose blood soaked the tunic that consumed Hercules with fire. Nessus’s shirt is a destructive or purifying force or influence.
nestle-cock The last-hatched bird or weakling of a brood; a mother’s pet or spoiled child.
neume Any of various signs used in the notation of plainsong during the Middle Ages.
newy Short for nephew.
New Bedford The leading whaling port in New England, located on Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts.
Newcastle A port on the Tyne River on the northeast coast of England that delivered much coal to southern England.
Newfoundland A large island lying off Canada’s Atlantic coast, known for its prime fishing grounds and the object of much rivalry between the English, French, Basque, and Portuguese. The British obtained sovereignty of Newfoundland in 1713 at the end of the War of Spanish Succession.
New Holland The original name of Australia.
Newmarket An English town still famous for its racetrack.
New South Wales The first area in NEW HOLLAND to be colonized, named by Captain COOK in 1770 on his first voyage. It is the location of Port Jackson, now Sydney, Australia.
night-ape also night-monkey or owl-monkey Any of several South and Central American monkeys of the genus Aotus, having large eyes, long nonprehensile tails, and nocturnal habits.
night-glass A short refracting telescope constructed for night use.
nightjar A common nocturnal bird that feeds on insects and is named for the odd whirring noise, similar to that of a large spinning wheel, made by the male during the incubation period.
Nile, Battle of the, or Battle of Aboukir Bay Occurring on August 1, 1798, in the bay of Aboukir off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, this was NELSON’S first command of a fleet action, and his aggressive tactics produced a decisive victory, including two vessels sunk and nine prizes, and ended in the spectacular and horrifying explosion of the French ship L’ORIENT. In a classic case of understatement, Nelson reported, “To do nothing was disgraceful; therefore I made use of my understanding.” The British victory isolated NAPOLEON’S forces in Egypt, making their position tenuous.
nimbus A large, uniformly gray rain cloud.
ninepins A bowling game in which nine wooden club-shaped pins are the targets.
nipper A piece of plaited SENNET, about five FATHOMS long, used to secure the MESSENGER to the anchor CABLE when hauling in the anchor.
nitrous oxide Commonly known as laughing gas, its anesthetic properties were discovered by Sir Humphry Davy in 1799. However, that effect was overlooked at the time, and for some years afterward it was used only to induce exhilarating “frolics” as a party amusement. It was first introduced into medical usage, for the painless extraction of teeth, in 1844, but did not gain widespread acceptance until two or three years later.
nob A person of wealth or social distinction.
nobble To tamper with a horse, usually by drugging or laming it, in order to prevent it from winning a race.
nobbut Only, merely, just.
nocturn In the Roman Catholic Church, one of the three canonical divisions of the office of Matins.
nocturna versate manu, versate diurna Page through by night and day (Latin; from Horace’s Art of Poetry).
noddy A dark, tropical seabird with the body of a tern but with shorter wings and less of a fork to the tail.
non amo te, Sabidi I do not love you, Sabidius (Latin; from the 33rd Epigram of Martial).
Non fui non sum non curo I was not, I am not, I care not (Latin).
non olet It doesn’t stink (Latin).
non omnia possumus omnes We cannot all do everything (Latin; from Virgil’s Aeneid).
Non sum qualis eram I am not what I used to be (Latin; Horace’s Odes VI, 1).
Nootka Sound Inlet on the west coast of VANCOUVER Island, Canada, that was visited by Captain COOK in 1778. Spain’s seizure of it in 1789 led to a breach with England that was settled by the Nootka Convention of October 28, 1790.
nordcaper A North Atlantic species of baleen whale, variously identified with Balaena mysticetus and B. biscayensis.
Nore, The A sandbank and naval anchorage about two miles northeast of Sheerness at the confluence of the Thames and the Medway rivers. Locating the Nore bank was the key to finding the main channels of both rivers. For many years, two buoys were moored on either side of the long bank, and in 1731 the world’s first light ship, the Nore Light, was moored at the easterly, seaward end of the Nore bank. The bank is located about 48 miles downstream from London Bridge and is generally used as the dividing point between the Thames River and the broad Thames estuary. The Nore was the site of a failed mutiny in 1797. Concessions in pay, food, and shore leave had previously been gained at a mutiny in SPITHEAD, and much of the North Sea Fleet at Yarmouth initially joined Richard Parker ofH.M.S. Sandwich and his cohorts before enthusiasm for the plot crumbled. Parker and 24 conspirators were tried and hanged at the YARDARM.
Nore Light See NORE, THE.
Norman Cross A prisoner-of-war camp in Cambridgeshire where some 1,800 French soldiers and sailors died in captivity.
North Foreland The 100-foot-high cliff on the northeast coast of Kent, off which the Royal Navy fought one of its most difficult battles in 1666, during the Second Dutch War, defeating the Dutch while suffering heavy losses.
Nostradamus (1503-1566) French physician and astrologer (French name, Michel de Nostredame) who became known as a prophet after he accurately predicted the death of Henry II of France.
nostrum A medicine with unrevealed ingredients; a quack remedy. A patent medicine—although securing a patent necessitated revealing the ingredients.
N’oubliez pas l’ours, messieurs-dames Don’t forget the bear, ladies and gents (French).
Nova Scotia A maritime province on the eastern coast of Canada first settled by the French in 1605. Called Acadia, it was the first permanent North American settlement north of Florida. Possession alternated between the French and English until 1713, when the entire area became British. In 1749, Halifax was settled as a naval dockyard and base for ships on the North America station. During and after the American Revolution, many LOYALISTS moved to Nova Scotia.
novena In the Roman Catholic Church, a devotion of special prayers or services on nine successive days.
nunc dimittis The first words of the Song of Simeon in Luke 2:29-32, nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine (Latin): “Let thy servant depart now, Lord.” To sing one’s nunc dimittis is to declare oneself willing or delighted to depart from life or from some occupation.
nunc est bibendum Now is the time for drinking (Latin; Horace, Odes I,37).
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae Now and at the hour of our death (Latin).
nutation A slight oscillation of the earth’s axis.
nympholept One who is in an emotional frenzy as a result of a violent enthusiasm, especially for an unattainable ideal.