COMMANDEMENT, the order or command to do any thing relative to the working of a ship.

COMMANDER à la route, to order or direct the course of a ship.

COMMANDES, knittles or seizings.

COMMANDEUR, the master or commander of any trading merchant-ship.

COMMIS, the supercargo of a merchant-vessel.

COMMIS des bureaux des douanes, the surveyors of the customs who visit shipping.

COMMIS du munitionnaire, or COMMIS à la attribution les vivres, a clerk or steward to the commissary or purser of a ship of war.

COMMIT général des convois & congés, an overseer or inspector of the customs with regard to shipping.

COMMISSAIRE de la marine imports in general a civil officer, or commissioner of the marine, of which there are several:

as,

COMMISSAIRE général à la suite des armées navales, an officer who receives the orders and instructions of the intendant of a fleet of men of war, and performs his duty when he is absent. See INTENDANT des armées navales.

COMMISSAIRE général de la marine, the principal officer under the intendant de marine, in his department. It is his duty, 1. To execute the orders of the admiral, or commissioners of the admiralty, with regard to the number of ships which are ordered to be taken into the service of the state, to take care that they are properly equipped, manned, and victualled, for the expedition on which they are destined; to impress the masters and mates who refuse to serve; and to break or disband and return, those who will not do their duty. 2. To measure the ships which are appointed to attend any fleet; to give them orders, either to sail with the said fleet, or to join it according to the regulations which have been made; to keep account of those who have been discharged from duty, and send them back in due time to the appointed place. 3. To attend the affairs of the dock-yards and harbours, and controul the clerks, artificers, and ordinary-men; to administer the oath of allegiance to them; to review the shipping, and take an inventory of the prices. 4. To take care that the oldest and best-seasoned timber is first used; and that the bolts, nails, and other ironworks, have their due proportions, and conform to their dimensions. 5. To examine, once every fortnight, the muster-roll of the artificers, signed by the clerks, 6. To observe that the master-shipwrights do in no ways depart from the draught which has been established by the council of construction, of which he is always possessed of a copy. 7. To inspect whatever concerns the port, and to take care that the ordinances relative thereto are faithfully executed; and to see that the ships are properly situated, and each one moored in the birth previously assigned.

It is also the office of the commissaire general to keep a list of the sea-officers and tailors, able and ordinary; and to minute the ships in which they have served, and upon what footing they have been paid. With respect to the youths, officers servants, and other boys, their names, privileges, and time of service, are enrolled in a particular list; and each of them is furnished with a certificate representing these articles.

Reference Works