them circumnavigated the globe, there can be no doubt that many of them were quite able to do so.
In the year 1800 there were 40 schooners owned in the Royal Navy. It is a significant fact that none was built by the government: 24 were bought, 2 were built in New York, 2 in Newfoundland 11 captured from the French, and 1 taken from the Spanish. There Is thus no evidence that any of these schooners were built in Great Britain.
Falconer gives the definition of a schooner: "A small vessel with two masts, whose mainsail and foresail are suspended from gaffs reaching from the mast towards the stern, and stretched out below by booms, whose foremast ends are hooked to an iron, which clasps the mast so as to turn therein as upon an axis, when the after ends are swung from one side of the vessel to the other."
This definition of a schooner cannot be accepted as complete; no bowsprit being mentioned. But it describes the rig of the yachts of Holland during the early part of the seventeenth century; also the Chebucco boats, which took their name from the town on the coast of Massachusetts,—known now as Essex,—where in Colonial times they were first built. This rig was, no doubt, imported from Holland. It seems probable, also—even at the date when Falconer's Dictionary was published—that little was known in England concerning the fore-and-aft schooner rig. Moreover, excepting for yachts, this has never been a favorite rig in Great Britain. These facts tend to confirm the claim
