NEWLY INVENTED IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUC- TION OF THE MASTS, YARDS, SAILS, AND RIGGING OF SHIPS AND SMALLER VESSELS, AND IN THE TACKLE USED FOR WORKING OR NAVIGATING THE SAME
Year: 1826

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
LANE HIGGINS, of Oxford Street, in the County of Middlesex, Esquire, send
gieeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by Iis Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Eleventh day of February, in the seventh year of His reign,
did give and grant unto me, the said John Lane Higgins, my exors, adiñors,
and assigns, is special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said John Lane Higgins, my exors, adññors, and assigns, should and
lawfully might, during the term of fourteen years, make, use, exercise, and
vend, within that part of His said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Bri-
tain and Ireland called England, the Dominion of Wales, and the Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, my "NEWLY INVENTED IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUC-
TION OF THE MASTS, YARDS, SAILS, AND RIGGING OF SHIPS AND SMALLER VESSELS,
AND IN THE TACKLE USED FOR WORKING OR NAVIGATING THE SAME," in which said,
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said John Lane
Diggins, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent,
as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had), will more fully and at
large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Lane Higgins, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature of my said

page_text: Invention, and declare that the plan thereof, hereunto annexed, is composed of
the following particulars (that is to say) :-
Figure 1 is a sail, the tack head and peak being an arch or equal distance
from the sheet. The head of the sail is set upon the gaft a; the fore end
travels between two ropes extending from the deck to the short gaft B at the
mast head; C is a flexible spar standing on the boom, on which the luff of the
sail travels with cringles or lacing. The luff of the sail is hauled forward by
a rope through a block or blocks on the mast.
Figure 2 is a lug sail set between a pair of sheers. The luff of the sail travels
up and down a flexible spar A, standing on the boom, and having a rope to 1
the mast head, which being hauled tight together with the spreet sets the luff
of the sail. A sail set in this manner as a mizen, with the boom attached to
the stern of the vessel by a swivel, will help to tack and veer the vessel. The
flexible spars may be made from one piece of wood being sawed in one or
more cuts from one end nearly to the other, and then covered with canvass, or 1
any other materials; or they may be made by several slips of wood round a
rope, and then covered with canvass, or any other material.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Lano Higgins, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the Twenty-seventh day of July, in the seventh
year of the reign of His present Majesty George the Fourth, by the
grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord One thousand
sight hundred and twenty-six.