Pilot

Formerly, a helmsman, or his skill and knowledge in respect to a particular channel, harbor, bay, port, &c., to take charge of a vessel entering such waters, and conduct or steer her through. Pilotage: the service of steering a vessel through particular waters, rendered by a person specially acquainted with them, and appointedsoto do. Also, the compensation payable for such service; the fee of a pilot. The dangerous navigation of the coasts and of the rivers of England has led to the appointment of qualified persons, who receive a license to act as pilots within a certain district, and who enjoy the monopoly of conducting vessels out of and up the various rivers, and to and from the various ports of the country. By different acts of parliar ment, the master of every ship engaged in foreign trade must put his ship under the charge of a local pilot, so licensed, both in his outward and in his homeward voyage. The same considerations have led to the establishment of a similar system in many of the ports of the United States; and to the enactment of laws authorizing the official appointment and commissioning of pilots, and requiring vessels whose masters refuse the services of a pilot, duly tendered, to pay pilotage, or half pilotage, notwithstanding.

Pilotage authorities

Bodies of persons in different parts of the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, having powers and jurisdictions with regard to the appointment and regulation of pilots for the districts in which they respectively act. The power of appointing these " duly licensed pilots " is said, by Brown, to be mainly vested in the corporation of the Trinity House, Deptford, whose jurisdiction extends from Orfordness to London Bridge, from London Bridge to the Downs, from the Downs westward to the Isle of Wight; and all bodies or persons having the power of appointment in other places (as the commissionei-s of the Cinque Ports, the Trinity Houses of Hull, Newcastle, and Liverpool) are, to some extent, subject to their authority. The rates of charge for pilotage are regulated, partly