cinque ports, the

The Sailor's Word-Book

These are five highly privileged stations, the once great emporiums of British commerce and maritime greatness; they are Dover, Hastings, Sandwich, Romney, and Hythe, which, lying opposite to France, were considered of the utmost importance. To these were afterwards added Winchelsea, Rye, and Seaford. These places were honoured with peculiar immunities and privileges, on condition of their providing a certain number of ships at their own charge for forty days. Being exempted from the jurisdiction of the Admiralty court, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is authorized to make rules for the government of pilots within his jurisdiction, and in many other general acts exceptions are provided to save the franchises of the Cinque Ports unimpeached. It is a singular fact that it has never been legally determined whether the Downs and adjacent roadsteads are included in the limits of the Cinque Ports. All derelicts found without the limits by Cinque Port vessels are droits of admiralty. This organization was nearly broken up in the late state reforms, but the Lord Warden still possesses some power and jurisdiction.

The Sailor's Word-Book

← cinque-port   ×   ciphering →

Related Words