sea cunny

[George Thompson]

Here's an antedating by nearly a decade of a word we all use just about
every day.  And a couple of post-datings thrown in.

OED:  sea-conny, n.  Forms:  Also seacunny, sea-cunny, seconny, seacony,
sea-connie, secunnie.

A steersman or quartermaster in a ship manned by lascars.
1801   *Asiatic Ann. Reg. 1800: Chron.* 21/1   A Frenchman..concerted a
plan with a Spaniard and four of the seacunnies, for murdering the officers
and seizing the ship.
1801   in A. Duncan *Marin. Chron.* (1804) II. 355   Leaving Captain
Porter, who, with six Manilla seconnies, remained on board the wreck.



     Bombay Gazette, Feb. 2.  Mallawans.

     ***  [pirates seize a ship]  Happy it would have been, had the
business rested here; in the course of their plundering, some of them
attempted to strip one of the Seacunnys, who not relishing such a
procedure, made resistance and knocked one of them down. . . .

     Daily Advertiser (New York City), September 7, 1793, p. 2, col. 3



     From a Calcutta Paper of December 15.  [report of a mutiny]  [The
captain] was then between the wheel and the cuddy door, when the sea cunny,
who suffered on Saturday, instantly plunged a crease into his heart. . . --
he had wounded one of the sea cunnies, but being pent under the poop, he
had not sufficient room to wield his sword in his defence.

     Morning Chronicle (New York City), June 11, 1806, p. 2, col. 5



     Pulo-Penang, April 3, 1819.

     Extract of a letter, dated Coast of Pedier, 15th March, 1819.

     "I am now enabled to give you a circumstantial account of the Massacre
of Capt. Onetta, his Wife, and the Officers of the *Wilhelmina*: it appears
that the subject was proposed by a Seacunny of the name of Jem, to the
Syrang, who, together with the Crew, immediately entered into his views o
hearing there was money on board. . . .

     Carolina Sentinel (Newbern, S. C.), October 9, 1819, p. 1, col. 3


GAT


-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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