"Privateer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self-supporting one, for it was paid by the produce of convoy fees and licenses to trade. It must be confessed that a portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail to be levied on friend and foe; for the distinctions between, freebooter, privateer, pirate, and legitimate sea-robber were not very closely drawn in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... enter himself, or to go beyond the limits or jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted or entered, in the service of any foreign state, either as a soldier or as a marine or seaman on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or privateer. And these enactments are also in strict conformity with the law of nations, which declares that no state has the right to raise troops for land or sea service in another state without its consent, and that, whether forbidden by the municipal ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... a report of the Secretary of State on the case of the Danish brigantine Henrick, taken by a French privateer in 1799, retaken by an armed vessel of the United States, carried into a British island, and there adjudged to be neutral, but under allowance of such salvage and costs as absorbed nearly the whole amount of sales of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... hide, when there ain't nothin' to hinder him, a man's plain animal," said Lund. "What do these water-front bullies know about a good gal—or care? They only know one sort. Ever think what happened to a woman in privateer days when they got one aboard, alone, on the high seas? Why, if they pushed Carlsen, he'd turn her over to 'em ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... Ogilvy, sixth Lord Banff, commanded the Hastings man-of war in 1742 and 1743, and captured, during that time, a valuable outward-bound Spanish register-ship, a Spanish privateer of twenty guns, a French polacca with a rich cargo, and other vessels. He died at Lisbon in November 1746, at the early ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... where, in presence of Strap, whom I introduced to him as one of my best friends, he gave me to understand, that he was just arrived from the Coast Of Guinea, after having made a pretty successful voyage, in which he had acted as mate, until the ship was attacked by a French privateer, that the captain being killed during the engagement, he had taken the command, and was so fortunate as to sink the enemy; after which exploit he fell in with a merchant ship from Martinico, laden with sugar, indigo and some silver and by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... they were seen there was a general rush for telescopes on the part of all the officers on deck; and after a protracted scrutiny of them the general consensus of opinion was that they were a French privateer and a British merchantman which she had captured. Coming down toward us, end-on as they were, it was not easy at first to determine their rig, but both were large ships, one of them being of about six hundred tons, while the other appeared to be fully as big as ourselves. ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... L30 for his share of the privateer, and expects L10 more; but of what avail is it to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? He has been buying gold chains and topaz crosses for us. He ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... fighting qualities and success in repulsing overwhelming numbers the exploit of Captain Samuel Chester Reid, in his battle with the British seamen which this picture illustrates, has never been surpassed. It was on the 26th of September, 1814, that the privateer, the brig "Armstrong," which had been fitted out in New York, cast anchor in the harbor of Fayal, one of the Azores, belonging to the neutral government of Portugal. About the same time three British ships, the "Plantagenet," the "Carnation" and the "Rota," under the ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... taken to the sea for a livelihood, and, never having known the influences of education and refinement, he is rude and imperious in manner. His ship lies in a Spanish port fitting for sea, but not with freight, for, tired of peaceful trading, Lee is equipping his vessel as a privateer. A Spanish lady who has just been bereaved of her husband comes to him to ask a passage to America, for she has no suspicion of his intent. Her jewels and well-filled purse arouse Lee's cupidity, and with pretended sympathy he accedes to her request, even going so far as to allow Senora's ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... other openings were in the legitimate trading to foreign parts, or service on a King's ship, or on a privateer, which latter business had come to be of very great importance in the Islands. And between those three there could not be any question which my mother and grandfather would favour. For the perils of the sea are considerable in themselves, and are never absent from any mother-heart ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... gradually disappeared. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the Indian villages which surround the great lake of Maracaybo. He had served on board a privateer belonging to the island of St. Domingo, and in consequence of a quarrel with the captain he had been left on the coast of Cumana, when the ship quitted the port. Having seen the signal which we had fixed up for the purpose of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... were under some concern for our safety, being in so wretched and enfeebled a condition that, notwithstanding the rank of our ship and the sixty guns she carried on board, which would only have aggravated our dishonour, there was scarcely a privateer sent to sea that was not an overmatch for us. However, our fears on this head proved imaginary, and we were not exposed to the disgrace which might have been expected to have befallen us had we been necessitated to fight our sixty-gun ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... of Dr Burton's unadventurous life occurred when he was returning with his parents from Jersey, in a troop-ship. The vessel was chased by a French privateer, and for some time the little family had reason to fear becoming inmates of a French prison. It was this incident which Dr Burton used in his later life to say entitled him to assert that he had been in the Peninsular War. The homeward journey from Jersey was to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... was living alone on his ship with a crew of men of a different nationality. Aside from the few who had always loved him, nobody would lament his death. He did not belong to any of the nations at war; he was a species of privateer bound not to begin an attack. He was even less,—an officer carrying supplies under the protection of a neutral flag. This flag was not deceiving anybody. His enemies knew the ship, seeking for it with more determination than if he were with the Allied ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to say that there was now an opportunity of giving him service in an enterprise likely to be congenial to "a man of metal" such as he conceived Alan to be. The war of American Independence had commenced, and the employment which the Leith friend proposed was that Alan should join a privateer which was fitting out in an English port, armed with letters of marque, to capture and destroy American shipping. Alan answered the invitation by repairing to Leith in person with all speed. The nature of the service offered, however, did not ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... his time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... upon the eastern side of the American continent. Now, not only was this in direct opposition to the realities of the case upon which he built, as first reported (I believe) by Woodes Rogers, from the log book of the Duke and Duchess,—(a privateer fitted out, to the best of my remembrance, by the Bristol merchants, two or three years before the peace of Utrecht,) and so far the mind of any man acquainted with these circumstances was staggered, in attempting to associate this eastern wreck of Crusoe with this western island,—but ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... vessel which had attacked us was the Mignonne, privateer, of twenty guns and eighty men, Captain Jules La Roche, of the port of Brest, we learned from the stranger. "And your own name, my friend?" I asked, not feeling very sure that the truth had been told us. "Dennis O'Carroll. My name will tell you where ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... after the manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether Christians may ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... prize was the Culloden, an English ship homeward-bound, which had been captured by a French privateer, and was on her way to the Mauritius. Her officers, with most of the English crew, had been removed ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Proclamation, the blockade of any one of the Northern ports by one of the ships of the Secessionists would be as lawful an act as the blockade of Charleston by a dozen of the Union's cruisers; and England allows that a privateer from Pensacola could seize an English ship that should be engaged in bringing arras to New York or Philadelphia. Thus are the two "parties" to the war placed on the same footing by the decision of the English Government, though the one party is a nation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of tan, with very red lips, who rolled a little in his walk; who seemed to be stifled in his black dress-coat, but who still retained the distinguished manners and bearing of a nobleman of the last century, one of those who, when he was ruined, fitted out a privateer, and fell upon the English wherever he met them, from St. Malo to Calcutta. And wherever he showed ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... me to call your attention to this beautiful group, which has lately been added, at an enormous expense, to my collection. You here behold the first privateer and the first victim of his murderous propensities. Captain Kidd, the robber of the main, is supposed to have originated somewhere down east. His whole life being spent upon the stormy deep, he amassed an immense fortune, and buried it in the sand along the flower-clad banks ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... rather long—something like fifty days—yet not altogether uneventful; for in the course of it we were chased by an American privateer, overhauled by a Spanish cruiser, nearly caught by a pirate, and almost swamped in a hurricane; but we fortunately escaped these and all other dangers, and eventually reached our haven ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... of the St. John tell, with bated breath, of an antique French caravel, which sails up the Carleton Falls, where no mortal vessel or steamer can follow. And the farmers and fishermen of Chester Bay still see the weird, unearthly beacon which marks the spot where the privateer Teaser, chased by an overwhelming English fleet, was hurled heavenward by the desperate act of one of her officers, who had broken his parole. As for the Gulf, the myth exists in a half dozen diverse forms, and all equally well ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... of a privateer of six guns, had a pleasant accident at this island. He came hither to careen, therefore hauled into the harbour and unrigged his ship. A Dutch ship of twenty guns seeing a ship in the harbour, and knowing her to be a French privateer, came within ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Canaries, off the west of Africa. There, to everybody's great 'amaze,' the Spaniards 'appeared levelling of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.' But when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and when it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels—English and Huguenot—had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previous summer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze.' Once explanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins as gentle ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... barque of a beautiful model, something more than two hundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for a privateer out of a New England port during the war of 1812, she had been captured at sea by a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service, was at last employed as a government packet in the Australian seas. Being condemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... before this action, one named Danas, or David, an English privateer, having treacherously hoisted French colors in the Streights of Fronsac, by means of a French deserter he had with him, decoyed on board his vessel the chief of the savages of Cape-Breton, called James Padanuque, with his whole family, whom he carried ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... out into Scotland about timber, and to use Pett there; for timber will be a good commodity this time of building the City; and I like the motion, and doubt not that we may do good in it. We did also discourse about our Privateer, and hope well of that also, without much hazard, as, if God blesses us, I hope we shall do pretty well toward getting a penny. I was mightily pleased with our discourse, and so parted, and to the office to finish my journall for three or four ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... A privateer was leaving Genoa on a certain June morning in 1461, and crowds of people had gathered on the quays to see the ship sail. Dark-hued men from the distant shores of Africa, clad in brilliant red and yellow and ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... away in memory this all comes back to me pure and fresh, but on that morning I gave it no heed. From the heights I passed along through quiet streets into the lower town, thence to the beach, where I was soon inquiring among the sailors for the privateer. These women looked askance at me, and regarded my unfamiliar uniform with suspicion, but after great difficulty one of their number was induced to carry me alongside an ominous looking craft lying in the harbor—a black-hulled brig of probably six hundred and fifty ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... during the war for Independence, which was natural enough, as their wealthy citizens were in close mercantile relations with English houses, and sent their children to England to be educated. Daniel Hathorne, however, as soon as hostilities had begun, fitted out his bark as a privateer, and spent the following six years in preying upon British merchantmen. How successful he was in this line of business we have not been informed, but he certainly did not grow rich by it; although he is credited with one engagement with the enemy, in which his ship came off ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... regularly patroled the fishing grounds in the interest of French fisheries. If the captain of either of those vessels should have come out of the fog and found us, his share of the prize in money might have amounted to $4,000,000. Did privateer ever ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... energy and discretion to prevent the sailing of the "Alabama''; and, when unsuccessful in this, he persistently urged upon the British government its responsibility for the destruction of American merchant vessels by the privateer. In his own diary he shows that underneath his calm exterior were serious trouble and keen anxiety; and, in fact, the strain which he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... every kind of camp appliance, garrison equipage, pack saddles, etc. Famous relics, too, such as a beautifully carved bronze cannon captured from the British at Yorktown in 1781, and a great gun called "Long Tom," with which the privateer General Armstrong repelled a British squadron off the shores of the Azores in 1814, and many ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... was commander of one of the privateer ships sailing in Spanish-American waters. When Captains Swan and Davis parted company he accompanied the latter. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... arrived, four hundred of us Americans were put on board transports, and we sailed for Halifax, under the convoy of the Ramilies. A day or two after we got out, we fell in with an American privateer, which continued hovering around us for several days. As this was a bold fellow, frequently coming within gun-shot, and sporting his sticks and canvass in all sorts of ways, Sir Thomas Hardy felt afraid he would get one of the four transports, and he took all us prisoners ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... sailors, and left to limp short-handed into port. A British East Indiaman homeward bound in 1802 was stripped of so many of her crew in the Bay of Biscay that she was unable to offer resistance to a French privateer and fell a rich victim into the hands of the enemy. The necessity of the royal navy knew no law and often defeated its ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... men seem to have been upset altogether by these warlike demonstrations, for the moment the big gun made its appearance the sails were shaken loose, and the French privateer sheered off, capturing as he left the bay, however, several small vessels, which he carried off as prizes to France. And so," concluded the lieutenant, "Captain Fall sailed away, and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... with orders in council and decrees that fell short of their mark, but did havoc among neutral merchantmen. To the ordinary perils of the deep the danger of capture—lawful or unlawful—by cruiser or privateer, was always to be added. The British were still enforcing their so-called "right of search," and many an American ship was left short-handed far out at sea, after a British naval lieutenant had picked the best of her crew on the pretense that they were British subjects. The ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... preclude all possibility of escaping; yet he was never abandoned by his hope and recollection; he still found some expedient that saved him from captivity and death; and through the whole course of his distresses maintained the most amazing equanimity and good humour. At length a privateer of Saint Malo, hired by the young Sheridan and some other Irish adherents, arrived in Lochnannach; and on the twentieth day of September, this unfortunate prince embarked in the habit which he wore for disguise. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... British Reindeer of 20 guns and 175 men in a splendid fight, and later sank the Avon, an 18-gun brig. After capturing a great prize, which he sent to Savannah, he sailed for the Spanish main and was never heard of more. Captain Boyle, in the privateer Comet of Baltimore, fought the Hibernia, of 18 guns, and later in the Chasseur, known as the phantom ship, so fast she sailed, took eighty prizes on the high seas. General A.E. Maccomb, who commanded victoriously at Plattsburg, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... eye anxiously upon the ship, but she sailed steadily on; and in half an hour the sails were again hoisted and the Trois Freres proceeded on her way. She passed comparatively near several merchantmen, but these paid no attention to her. She was too small for a privateer, and her object and destination were easily guessed at. The girls soon came on deck, and the captain had some cushions placed for them under shelter of the bulwark; for although the sun was shining brightly the wind ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... not the merchant's trade carried on, likewise, at greater hazard? Is not the freight, equally with the sailors, threatened at once by the ocean and the enemy? And is not the owner's fortune equally impaired, whether the ship is dashed upon a rock, or seized by a privateer? ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... alliance, which William III had made the keystone of his policy, ceased to exist. War was not declared, but the States-General voted for "unlimited convoy" on April 24; and every effort was made by the Admiralties to build and equip a considerable fleet. The reception given to the American privateer, Paul Jones, who, despite English protests, was not only allowed to remain in Holland for three months, but was feted as a hero (October-December, 1779), accentuated the increasing ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... oddly beyond either pity or blame. I thought of him as a victim of his own weakness, as the prey of a predaceous and unscrupulous woman who had intrigued and would continue to intrigue against his happiness, a woman away from her own world, a self-complacent and sensual privateer who for a passing whim, for a momentary appeasement of her exile, stood ready to sacrifice the last of his self-respect. She was self-complacent, but she was also a woman with an unmistakable physical appeal. She was undeniably ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... arrested, and it remains doubtful whether they will not be restored to the original proprietors. The captain of one of the privateers on his passage took on board a lady, who was prisoner on board an American privateer, bound for Boston. This he did from motives of humanity. On his arrival at Painbeuf, she wrote to her brother, a merchant at Nantes, who came down, and hoping to get the consignment of the prizes, officiously advised the captain to report them as ships laden at St Eustatia, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... Captain Knox of the privateer Molly had never heard of Joe Robertson; but his knowledge of the world made him see truth and innocence in the face of the boy. Blair's words came too quickly, and his voice was pitched too high for English birth, and that the blunt captain marked ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... shelves, little thinking what dreadful scenes would be enacted upon them. The fact is that the Mary Ellen was destined for the African trade, in which she made many very successful voyages. In 1779, however, she was converted into a privateer. My father, at the present time, would not, perhaps, be thought very respectable; but I assure you he was so considered in those days. So many people in Liverpool were, to use an old and trite sea-phrase, "tarred with the same brush" that these occupations ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... been informed that two officers in the service of the republic of France, citizen Gideon Henfield and John Singletary, have been arrested on board the privateer of the French republic, the Citizen Genet, and conducted to prison. The crime laid to their charge—the crime which my mind cannot conceive, and which my pen almost refuses to state—is the serving of France, and defending with ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... next voyage, however, with a different captain, the Duff was captured by a French privateer, the captain of which, when he understood the purpose of the voyage, greatly regretted what he had done, and declared that he would rather have given 500l. than have interfered with it. He landed the missionaries at Monte Video, and ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... no ship like a privateer, and no privateer like the Huntress," he was saying. "Send her on one more voyage and we ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... by a privateer or pirate," sung out another voice. This was followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher's axe is driven through a bullock's forehead deep ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... casks. Sailing thence she struck a reef near her destination at Curacao and was abandoned by her officers and crew. Finally a sloop sent by the Curacao governor to remove the surviving slaves was captured by a privateer with them on board. Of the 195 negroes comprising the cargo on June 30, from one to five died nearly every day, and one leaped overboard to his death. At the end of the record on October 29 the slave loss had reached 110, with the mortality rate ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... and promised to leave him to the attacks of the little privateer, without falling foul of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... wounds of the first defeat were sufficiently healed to induce a second attempt on vessels under the British flag, though a constant state of warfare was still kept up against the small craft of the gulf. In 1804, the East India Company's cruiser, Fly, was taken by a French privateer, off the Island of Kenn, in the Persian Gulf; but before the enemy boarded her, she ran into shoal water, near that island, and sunk the government dispatches, and some treasure with which they were charged, in ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... prisoner—on parole. That means he's promised not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman. He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him worth exchanging. My uncle captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, and he cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that we couldn't let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he stays with us. He's of very old family—a ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... borrowed from a boat-builder, but while they are out, there is a violent change in the weather, with the wind reversing and increasing to a point in which the lugger is swamped, and about to sink. They are picked up by a passing vessel, which turns out to be a privateer, and her captain refuses to waste time by landing them. So they are found positions in the crew, and take part in the subsequent events. They do battle with a Spanish vessel, loot her, and let her go. Then they arrive at Cartagena in the West Indies, where ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... man in two continents. I am bewildered. First, you kidnap a chauffeur and privateer his car, then me. Now you besiege a friend and wish to leave me on his doorstep ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... are at war with England," suggested Winslow. "And this may be a privateer coming to harry ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... that, though he succeeded in sewing on one sleeve to the hole at the shoulder, where it ought to be, he committed the slight mistake of sewing on the other sleeve to one of the pocket-holes. Poor Andrew Fern had heard that his townsman's sloop had been captured by a privateer, and, fidgety with impatience till he had communicated the intelligence where he thought it would tell most effectively, he called on the master's wife, to ask whether she had not heard that all ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... firmness of mind, coolness and contempt of danger, and quickness of resource in time of need, that ever distinguished his character, and showed him to be a man of no ordinary talents. In less than an hour the privateer—for such she was—came alongside, and sent an officer to see "what he wanted steering for a hostile coast." The first questions that were put, and answered unhesitatingly, were—what he had on board? and where he was bound? Of course ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... General of the Independent and Revolutionary Legion of the Mississippi," and was promised the cooperation of frigates in his attack upon New Orleans. For this purpose Genet made haste to transform the Little Sarah into a privateer, under the very eyes of the Government. He was warned that he must not allow La Petite Democrate, as the vessel was rechristened, to put to sea. Nevertheless, in defiance of the state and federal authorities, the ship dropped down the bay and eventually ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... blackguard fellow eneugh—naebody cares to trouble him—smuggler, when his guns are in ballast—privateer, or pirate faith, when he gets them mounted. He has done more mischief to the revenue folk than ony rogue that ever came out ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Castlebar. In this wise she got news of what was passing in Connaught and Munster before most men had it, and more than one foreign ship had found her caracks waiting for it through the same means, since she held a privateer commission given her by Blake to legalize her sea-roving. Also, she had pigeons which carried return messages, chiefly to her ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... by renouncing piracy. So leaving the Revenge in the inlet, he journeyed overland to Bath; there he signed pledges, took oaths, and did everything that was necessary to change himself from a pirate captain to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British privateer. Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his pocket necessary to prove that he was a loyal and law-abiding subject of Great Britain, he took out regular clearance papers for St. Thomas, which was a British naval station, and where he declared he was going ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... streaming from the top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, for they were days ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... after this short visit, the fleet being off Corsica, that our hero was walking the deck, thinking that he soon should see the object of his affections, when a privateer brig was discovered at anchor a few miles from Bastia. The signal was made for the boats of the fleet to cut her out; and the Admiral, wishing that his nephew should distinguish himself somehow, gave him the command of one of the finest boats. Now Jack was as brave as brave could be; ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... service of the Republic of Rio Grande, which had set itself up against the authority of the Emperor of Brazil. In this struggle of a little State against a larger one, Garibaldi distinguished himself not only for his bravery but for his military talent of leadership. He took several prizes as a privateer, but was wounded in some engagement, and fled to Gualeguay, where he was thrown into prison, from which he made his escape, and soon after renewed his seafaring adventures, some of which were marvellous. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Affairs, had an exorbitant idea of his own importance, and might be described without malice as a master of effrontery. The ship which brought him to this country was driven by adverse winds to Charleston and landed him there on April 8th. He lost no time in fitting out a privateer against British mercantile vessels. The fact that by so doing he broke the American rule of neutrality did not seem to trouble him at all; on the contrary, he acted as if he were simply doing what the United States would do if they really ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... mighty genius for discoveries; but the prevailing notion of those times, that the only way to serve the nation was plundering the Spaniards, seems to have got the better of his desire to find out unknown countries; and made him choose to be known to posterity rather as a gallant privateer than as an able seaman, though in ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... English pirates, with whom she afterwards enjoyed the benefit of a royal proclamation pardoning all pirates who submitted within a limited period. Their money gave out, and they enlisted under a privateer captain to cruise against the Spaniards; but the men, finding a favorable opportunity, took the vessel from the officers, and commenced their old trade. Mary was as brave as any in boarding Spanish craft, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Their naval force, according to the best intelligence, is the Charon, of forty-four guns, Commodore Symmonds, the Amphitrite, Iris, Thames, and Charlestown frigates, the Forvey, of twenty guns, two sloops of war, a privateer ship, and two brigs. We have about thirty-seven hundred militia embodied, but at present they are divided into three distant encampments: one under General Weeden, at Fredericksburg, for the protection of the important works there; another under General Nelson, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of this famous fight is described in the March CENTURY by Col. John Taylor Wood, fourth officer of the "Merrimac" in the second day's fight, and now the senior surviving officer. Col. Wood was afterward commander of the privateer "Tallahassee." The Federal side of the battle is told by Commander S.D. Greene, U.S.N. (whose death has just occurred), who was the executive officer of the "Monitor," and operated the guns within the turret. General R.E. Colston, commander of the Confederate forces opposite Newport ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... rapidly; and unless the British began operations soon, all hope of conquering America "in one campaign" would have to be abandoned. Rumors of their coming took definite shape in the last week of June, when word reached camp that an American privateer had captured a British transport with more than two hundred Highlanders as prisoners. On the 25th and 26th three or four large ships arrived off Sandy Hook, one of which proved to be the Greyhound, with Sir William Howe on board; on the 29th a fleet of forty-five ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Duff was captured by the Bonaparte, privateer. Among her passengers were several ladies—wives of the missionaries—and at first the citizens of Monte Video classed them with ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... had the effect of driving several Moorish vessels close under the walls of the town, just in front of the mosque Djama Djedid. During its progress a French privateer, (in other words, a licensed pirate!) which chanced to be in port at the time, unintentionally fouled a Moorish ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... unlistening ears full account of the north sea, whither Captain Gillam was to go for the Fur Company, and whither, too, Master Ben was keen to sail, "a pirateer, along o' his own risk and gain," explained the mate with a wink, "pirateer or privateer, call 'em what you will, Mister; the Susan with white sails in Boston Town, and Le Bon Garcon with sails black as the devil himself up in Quebec, ha—ha—and I'll give ye odds on it, Mister, the devil himself don't catch ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Admiral of the family" of whom we have already heard) on a cruise to intercept some Venetian merchantmen on their way home from Flanders. At break of day the battle began, off Cape St. Vincent, and lasted till nightfall. The privateer commanded by Columbus grappled a huge Venetian galley, which, after a hand-to-hand struggle, caught fire, and the flames spread to the privateer. Friends and enemies alike sought safety in the sea, and Columbus, supporting himself on an oar, succeeded, when nearly exhausted, in ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... fleet, people in general run into great errors; it is not necessary that one fourth part should he sailors. The Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred. A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number of active ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... sunset when the salutes were exchanged, and in order that there should be no mistake about it, the next morning, the 15th of February, Jones transferred his flag to the Independence, a small privateer, and deliberately sailed through La Motte Picquet's great fleet of towering line-of-battle-ships, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... be wasted with fire and sword before their sovereign would know their distress. A gang of robbers, such as has been lately found confederating themselves in the Highlands, might lay a wide region under contribution. The crew of a petty privateer might land on the largest and most wealthy of the Islands, and riot without control in cruelty and waste. It was observed by one of the Chiefs of Sky, that fifty armed men might, without resistance ravage the country. Laws that place the subjects in such a state, contravene ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... dreamt that on his way to the harbour he crossed the churchyard and fell into an open grave. Telling this to his parents at "The Pollet," they would not let him go, with a sort of superstitious wisdom; for, strangely enough, the smack was seized on its voyage by a privateer, and all the crew and passengers were consigned—for twelve years—to a French prison! I have heard my father tell this tale, and noted early how true was Dr. Watts' awkward line, "On little things what great depend." I might say more about warnings in dreams and other somnolencies, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three fortunate cruises, and was able at the peace to purchase a prize-brig, which he sailed, as master and owner, until the year 1790, when he was recalled to the paternal roof by the death of my grandfather. Being an only son, the captain, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... its first voyage to Macan, and thence to return to Mexico without touching at this city. And now it has been learned by letters from private persons that the ship "Santa Ana," burned by the English privateer, has been sold at public auction in the plaza of the City of Mexico, also with the condition that permission would be given so that it could make another voyage to Macan. If this be so, it means the total ruin of this country; because it cannot be supported if commerce be carried on between ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... this exploit, but he does not seem to have been actually punished. In a very short time he was out and away again at the old work. There were plenty with him. After the business at Gibraltar, Philip's subjects were not safe in English harbours. Jacques le Clerc, a noted privateer, called Pie de Palo from his wooden leg, chased a Spaniard into Falmouth, and was allowed to take her under the guns of Pendennis. The Governor of the castle said that he could not interfere, because Le Clerc had a commission from the Prince of Conde. It was proved that in the ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... before them. Paul lay snugly under his shelter, wondering when they would reach the enemy's side. He soon began to repent of his freak; he could hear the remarks of the men as they pulled on. The ship was from her appearance a letter of marque or a privateer, and such was not likely to yield without a severe struggle, he heard. Paul could endure the suspense no longer, and creeping from under his covering, he ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... all your privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did NO ONE of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic, if you can't help me. My application to Scribner has been quite in vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of some ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... received a note about an hour ago from Lieut.-Colonel Pearson, who sailed from hence last Sunday, with his wife and family, for Quebec, being appointed inspecting field officer in Canada, to inform me that he had been made prisoner by an American privateer. Most of our ships are looking out for the squadron the Americans have at sea, under Commodore Rodgers, who is supposed to have sailed from New York with a view to intercept our West ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... me an anecdote of Louis the Fourteenth, king of France, which, as I think his conduct on the occasion much to his credit, I shall send to you. He was at war with the English at the time this building was begun; during its progress, a French privateer took the men at work on the rock prisoners, together with their tools, and carried them to France. The captain, no doubt, expected a handsome reward for his achievement. Whilst the captives lay in prison, the transaction reached the ears of Louis: ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... wrote the Minister, Berryer, "laden with goods such as are wanted in the colony, was captured by a privateer from St. Malo, and brought into Quebec. You sold the whole cargo for eight hundred thousand francs. The purchasers made a profit of two millions. You bought back a part for the King at one million, or two hundred thousand more than the price which you sold the whole. With ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall, And he was Captain of the Fleet — the bravest of them all. Their good guns guarded their great gray sides that were thirty foot in the sheer, When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer. Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas. Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold. ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... ridge, and the ruined forts on each wooded promontory recall the long-past days when the "fruit of gold" demanded the increasing vigilance of military power to defeat the onslaught of merchantman or privateer, willing to run every risk in order to capture a cargo of spices, and secure fabulous gains by appeasing the frantic thirst of Europe for the novel luxury of the aromatic spoils. The mediaeval craze has died away, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... Sutton married Elizabeth, widow of John Dudley, of Stoke Newington. He continued to amass wealth as his mercantile operations extended, and he carried on a large trade with the Continent, where at one time he had as many as thirty agents. He is reported to have fitted out a privateer at his own charges to meet the navy of Philip, King of Spain. In 1594 Sutton resigned his post as Master General of the Ordnance, and there is evidence to show that the question of a proper disposal of his wealth began to occupy his mind. In ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... favorite pupils and the intimate friend of Pemberton. As he was to be a minister, he stayed at Cambridge until he took his master's degree in 1695; he then sailed at once for England in the Swan. When she had been some weeks at sea she was attacked by a French privateer, who took her after a sharp action. During the fight Colman attracted attention by his coolness; but he declared that though he fired like the rest, "he was sensible of no courage but of a great deal of fear; and when they had received two or three broadsides he wondered when his courage would ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... pistols, and boarding-pikes, to enable her crew to repel an attack made by boats or from a hostile craft which might run alongside her. She was truly an Arab of the seas, with every man's hand against her, and her hand against every man. The captain, by means best known to himself, had obtained a privateer's licence, and in that character he appeared when in English waters, though her real employment was more than suspected by the revenue officers, who were on the look-out to catch her. In this they had invariably failed, owing to the vigilance ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... Did the gallant privateer possibly talk with the farmer about the introduction of that new esculent, the potato? Did they talk tobacco? Did Colin Clout have any observations to make upon the rot in sheep, or upon the probable "clip" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... first, the relations with the French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid, and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Penobscot factory was away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the English at a disadvantage forced them to an unconditional ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... A privateer was a vessel which under commission from one country, carried on war with the ships of other countries. The captains were called privateers, as were the ships. These privateers were so successful ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... Dutch fleets, but also of Van Noordt's entire voyage to the Philippines. The battle ends, on the whole, disastrously for Van Noordt. Among the plunder found on the Dutch ships is a commission granted to Esaias de Lende as a privateer against the Spaniards in the Indias. Suit being brought against the admiral Alcega for deserting the flagship in the battle with Van Noordt, Morga presents therein his version of the affair (January 5, 1601)—throwing the blame for the loss of the flagship on Alcega's disobedience ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... months of 1693 the English trade with the Mediterranean had been interrupted almost entirely. There was no chance that a merchantman from London or Amsterdam would, if unprotected, reach the Pillars of Hercules without being boarded by a French privateer; and the protection of armed vessels was not easily obtained." Why? Because the vessels of England's navy were occupied watching the French navy, and this diversion of them from the cruisers and privateers ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... much that is traditional, a brief sketch of the pirate's life may not be amiss. According to Francis Xavier Martin's History of North Carolina, Edward Teach was born in Bristol, England. While quite young he took service on a privateer and fought many years for king and country with great boldness. In 1796 he joined one Horngold, one of a band of pirates who had their rendezvous in the Bahamas, taking refuge when pursued, in the sounds and ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... 1664 and 1672 with Holland added much to the distress in Virginia. The bold Dutch mariners, angered at the injury done them by the Navigation Acts, preyed upon the English merchantmen in every sea. Woe to the tobacco ship that encountered a hostile privateer, in its journey across the Atlantic! The English vessels were not safe even in the Virginia rivers, under the guns of their forts. Twice the daring Dutch came through the capes and into the James River itself, where they wrought great damage to ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Admiral von Spee, with the German Pacific squadron, was at Kiaochau in command of seven vessels. Among these was the Emden, whose adventurous career has been already described. Another, the Karlsruhe, became a privateer in the South Atlantic. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... hair came off. And his eye he lost in a little job with the preventive men; but his lid drooped so, you'd hardly know 'twas missing. He'd a way, too, of talking to himself as he went along, so that folks reckoned him silly. It was queer how that maggot stuck in their heads; for in handling a privateer or a Guernsey cargo—sink the or run it straight—there wasn't his master in Polperro. The very children ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... carried on successfully; and success depends as much as anything upon the kind of men employed. I have been having a chat with Captain Winter upon the subject, with the result that I have purchased the schooner that they are now finishing off in Martin's building-yard; and I intend to fit her out as a privateer; that being the kind of work, in fact, that she has been especially built for. Captain Winter will have the command of her, of course, with Mr Lovell as chief mate; and, George, upon the captain's very strong recommendation, I have determined to offer you the berth of second mate. ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... 'between the Irish robbers and the French privateers,' then swarming the Irish coast. From eight to ten of these desperate characters were sent to Cork for trial at every assize of Bear Haven. They swore vengeance upon the upright magistrate; and in the year 1704, a French privateer hove in sight—soon anchoring, he faced M. Fontaine's house. The vessel mounted ten guns, with a crew of eighty seamen. The Huguenot mustered all his men, amounting to twenty, and, sending the Papists away, he supplied ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Marcelle in Paris, and she accompanies him from Monte Carlo to Ventimiglia, and there gives him a parting kiss and whispers, "Avril-Fontainebleau"—and lo, this sweet one is duly spread upon the minutes. He permits himself to be arrested by a fair privateer in Piccadilly, and goes with her to one of the dens of sin that suffragettes see in their nightmares, and cross-examines her at length regarding her ancestry, her professional ethics and ideals, and her earnings ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... pirate, did I? No, ma'am, I was a privateer, but not a pirate. I was sailing under your colors, unbeknown to you. Is that correct military language, Phelps? To make a long story short, Scipio told me in his charcoal style what happened last night, and all about Harman's sudden going away. Well, sir—ma'am, I mean—it ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Forward them, my Dear Sir, immediately to our dear country. Captains Wickes, Johnson, and Nicholson, have just destroyed sixteen vessels on the English and Irish coast. I am despatching Conyngham from hence on the same business in a privateer. I begin ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... Santiago in Cuba. Not long before this a Spanish ship commanded by Diego Perez had an engagement of four days continuance with a French privateer, separating courteously by mutual consent every night, and recommencing furiously every morning; but the Frenchmen slipped off during the fourth night. Immediately on his arrival in Cuba, Soto sent orders to repair the Havannah, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the privateer for this. Still it was a fair profit and wisely expended, wiser to my mind than the methods of Robert Morris. At any rate ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett |
