Note 4 — Chapter I · FROM KING ROAD, BRISTOL, TO CORK IN IRELAND.
Reading edition
"Snow." A vessel which would now be called a brig. The largest two masted craft of that time, and then distinguished from a brig by having a square mainsail below her maintopsail; a fore and aft sail being also carried upon a small spar fitted to, and just abaft the mainmast. In the original brigs this fore and aft sail was set upon the mainmast itself, and was the mainsail, in the Snow it became the spanker.