[f. as prec. + -AGE.]
1. Carriage by boat; a charge or customs paid on such carriage.
1611. Cotgr., Droict de Rivage, shorage, or boatage; the custome, or toll for wine, or other wares, put vpon, or brought from, the water, by boats.
1810. J. T., in Risdon’s Surv. Devon, Introd. 31. Sixpence a ton per mile, even if we include the boatage.
1861. Olmsted, Cotton Kingd., I. 17. Longhaulage and boatage to market.
† 2. Boats and similar craft collectively. Obs.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 304. He cut a passage … into the river Petteril, for the conveyance of boatage into the Irish Sea.
