skafemasters

Item, the company exhorteth, willeth, requireth, not only all the said agents, pilots, masters, merchants, clerks, boatswains, stewards, skafemasters, and all other officers and ministers of this present voyage, being put in charge and trust daily to peruse, read, and study, such instructions as be made, given, and delivered to them for perfect knowledge of the people of Russia, Muscovy, Wardhouse, and other places; their dispositions, laws, manners, customs, uses, tolls, carriages, coins, weights, numbers, measures, wares, merchandises, commodities and incommodities, the one to be accepted and embraced, the other to be rejected and utterly abandoned, to the intent that every man taking charge, may be so well taught, perfected, and readily instructed, in all the premises, that, by ignorance, no loss or prejudice may grow or chance to the company, assuring themselves, that forasmuch as the company hath travailed and laboured so in these their instructions to them given, that every man may be perfect, and fully learned to eschew all losses, hurts, and damages, that may ensue by pretence or colour of none knowledge, the company extendeth not to allow, or accept ignorance for any lawful or just cause of excuse, in that which shall be misordered by negligence, the burthen whereof shall light upon the negligent offending person, especially upon such as of their own heads, or temerity, will take upon him or them to do or to attempt anything, whereby prejudice may arise, without the commission of the agents as above is mentioned, whereunto relation be had.

Richard Hakluyt - Discovery of Muscovy