her port of discharge, she was to be hauled up on dry ground, the sails taken down, and everything properly stowed away; and that then the master ought to consider an increase of wages, "kenning by kenning."[1]
Shares in fishing vessels. The twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth clauses adjust the respective shares of fishing vessels, when several were working in partnership, and provide that in the case of the loss of one vessel, the representatives of the parties who had perished could claim their quota of the fish caught as well as of the fishing instruments. They further relate to the salvage of shipwrecked vessels, in which the right of all shipwrecked persons to their goods is fully maintained; and refer to derelict ships and goods whose owners have been drowned, stipulating that such goods be kept a year, and if not claimed in that time be vested in the Church under certain conditions.
Wreckers. The thirty-first clause provides that any wreckers who plundered a ship, or who, "more barbarous, cruel, and inhuman than mad dogs, did sometimes, to gain their apparel, monies or goods, murder and destroy poor distressed seamen; in this case, the lord of the country ought to execute justice on such wretches, to punish corporally as well as pecuniarily, to plunge them in the sea till they be half dead, and then to have them drawn from the sea and stoned to death."
- ↑ "Kenning" is a very ancient word in sea language. It means view, or course, "course by course," and was employed when navigation was performed by views and by observation from one land to another, prior to the use of the compass. Admiral W. H. Smyth, in his "Sailor's Word Book," states that "it was a mode of increasing wages formerly, according to whaling law, by seeing how a man performed his duty."
