packet-boat
[f. packet n. + boat n. Hence, F. paquebot, in 1634 paquebouc (Cleiriac Termes de Marine 35), in Dict. Acad. 1718 paquet-bot.]
A boat or vessel plying at regular intervals between two ports for the conveyance of mails, also of goods and passengers; a mail-boat. (Often shortened to packet: see packet n. 2.)
Orig. the boat maintained for carrying ‘the packet’ of State letters and dispatches. Cf. 1598–9 (in Rept. Secret Committee on Post Office, 1844, 37) ‘Postes towardes Ireland..Hollyheade, allowance as well for serving the packett by lande as for entertaining a bark to carie over and to returne the packet, at x li. the moneth’. An early official name for this was post-bark (in State Papers as late as 1651), also post-boat, q.v. In 1628 (S.P. Dom. Chas. I, CXXIV. 118 b, P.R.O.) ‘Hollyhead for keepinge a Boate..to Transport the Packetts to Ireland. Margin, this to bee performed by the pacquets postmaster’; this ‘Boate to Transport the Packetts’ was prob. already familiarly known as the ‘packet-boat’, since this term was so well-known as to be borrowed in French before 1634. (In 1637 the ‘Speedy Post’ to carry the packet to and from the Continent was known as the ‘Postmaster's Frigate’ (Cal. S.P. passim).
| 1641 Evelyn Diary 11 Oct., I marched three English miles towards the packet-boate. 1649–50 Commons' Journal 21 Mar., The Charge of the Packet Boats for Ireland. 1657 Acts & Ordin. Parl. c. 30 §8 (Scobell) 513 Rules..for the Settlement of Convenient Posts, and Stages..and the providing and keeping of a sufficient number of Horses, and Pacquet-Boats. 1668 Lond. Gaz. No. 267/4 The passage is re-establist between Harwich and Helvoet-sluyce, with able and sufficient Pacquet-boats of 60 Tuns. 1693 G. Collins Gt. Brit. Coasting Pilot i. 14/1 Holyhead-Road... The Pacquet Boats for Ireland use this place. 1718 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. to Abbé Conti 31 Oct., I arrived this morning at Dover, after being tossed a whole night in the packet-boat. 1774 Pennant Tour Scot. in 1772, 295 A pacquet-boat,..sails every fortnight. 1879 Black Macleod of D. xxx, The big open packet-boat that crosses the Frith of Lorn. |