Definition
A charge payable by the shipper or consignor of cargo to the master of a vessel, assessed over and above the freight rate, as compensation for the master's care and trouble in handling the goods. Historically, primage was divided in its recipients: the master received payment for the use of his cables and ropes in discharging cargo, while the mariners received payment for the labor of lading and unlading at port. The charge is customarily expressed in bills of lading as "primage and average accustomed."
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Droplets of water suspended in steam, especially in the cylinder of a steam engine — a term belonging entirely to mechanical engineering and physics.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A charge in addition to freight; originally a gratuity to the captain for his particular care of the goods (sometimes called "hat money"), now generally belonging to the owners or freighters of the vessel unless specially assigned to the captain by agreement.
The legal and common meanings share no overlap today. The Wiktionary definition reflects a wholly unrelated technical term from steam mechanics. Researchers encountering "primage" in a legal or commercial shipping context should disregard the engineering meaning entirely. Webster's 1913, by contrast, tracks the legal meaning closely and is the more useful collateral source for historical research.
Common Confusion
Primage is not freight. It is a supplemental charge assessed on top of freight, not a component of it. Early sources, including Bouvier and Black's, emphasize this distinction by defining primage as payable "over and above the freight." The two charges appear together in bills of lading ("primage and average accustomed"), which can cause readers to treat them as a single undifferentiated obligation. They are not — freight compensates the shipowner for carriage; primage historically compensated the master personally, and later the owners or freighters.
Primage should also not be confused with average, though the two terms travel together in the standard bill of lading formula. Average refers to a different set of charges relating to shared losses at sea; primage relates solely to the supplemental compensation for loading, unloading, and care of cargo.
Why It Matters in Research
Primage is a term in active use across several centuries of maritime and mercantile documentation, but its meaning shifted significantly between the early modern period and the nineteenth century. Early sources treat it as a personal gratuity owed to the master of the vessel — essentially a customary tip for attentive cargo handling. By the time Anderson's Dictionary was compiled, primage had shed its gratuity character and was reclassified as additional freight belonging to the shipowners or freighters, not to the master personally, unless a contrary agreement was made explicit. Researchers working with bills of lading, shipping contracts, or freight disputes across different historical periods must be alert to this shift: the same word describes two functionally different entitlements depending on the era and the specific contractual language.
The phrase "primage and average accustomed" appears as boilerplate in historical bills of lading across English and American shipping records. Researchers encountering this phrase should treat it as a term of art, not parse the words independently. Burrill notes that Kent's Commentaries address primage directly, making Kent a useful secondary source for American context.
Jurisdictional variation is limited but not absent: in Louisiana, French-derived maritime custom influenced how primage was understood and allocated, as suggested by the Louisiana case referenced in Black's 2d ed.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries are broadly consistent on the core definition — a supplemental charge for the master's care of goods, payable above freight — but diverge meaningfully on who receives it.
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier split primage between master and mariners, with the master compensated for his cables and ropes and the mariners for the physical labor of loading and unloading. Burrill simplifies: he omits the mariners entirely and defines primage solely as compensation to the master. Anderson resolves the divergence historically by noting that primage is "no longer considered a gratuity to the master, unless specially so stipulated" — it belongs to the owners or freighters as an increment of the freight rate.
The Abbotts on Shipping treatise (cited by Black's and Bouvier) is the common authority underlying most of these definitions. Kent's Commentaries (cited by Burrill) provides the American doctrinal anchor. Researchers who need more than a dictionary definition should go to those treatises directly.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the procedural question of how primage disputes were litigated — whether as an admiralty matter or a common law contract claim. That gap is significant for researchers tracing primage through court records.
Jurisdictional Note
Primage as a live legal concept belongs primarily to the historical maritime law of England and the United States. In American practice, it appears most frequently in nineteenth-century admiralty and commercial shipping contexts. Louisiana sources reflect French maritime influences. Modern shipping contracts have largely replaced primage with standardized freight and surcharge schedules, making the term primarily relevant to historical document research rather than contemporary practice.