PESAGE. A custom or duty paid for weighing merchandise, or other goods.
PESETA, or Pistoreen. A Spanish silver coin: one-fifth of a piastre.
PESSURABLE, or Pestarable, of our old statutes, implied such merchandise as take up much room in a ship.
PETARD. A hat-shaped metal machine, holding from 6 to 9 lbs. of gunpowder; it is firmly fixed to a stout plank, and being applied to a gate or barricade, is fired by a fuse, to break or blow it open. (See [Powder-bags].)
PETARDIER. The man who fixes and fires a petard, a service of great danger.
PET-COCK. A tap, or valve on a pump.
PETER. See [Blue Peter].
PETER-BOAT. A fishing-boat of the Thames and Medway, so named after St. Peter, as the patron of fishermen, whose cross-keys form part of the armorial bearings of the Fishmongers' Company of London. These boats were first brought from Norway and the Baltic; they are generally short, shallow, and sharp at both ends, with a well for fish in the centre, 25 feet over all, and 6 feet beam, yet in such craft boys were wont to serve out seven years' apprenticeship, scarcely ever going on shore.
PETER-MAN, or Peterer. A fisherman. Also, the Dutch fishing vessels that frequented our eastern coast.
PETITORY SUITS. Causes of property, formerly cognizable in the admiralty court.