"Roadstead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... end of August 1604, to recruit colonists. Thus he had escaped the horrible winter at St Croix, but on account of lawsuits it had proved impossible for him to return to Acadia in the following year. Hence the noble roadstead of Port Royal was still unoccupied when De Monts, Champlain, and Pontgrave took the people of St Croix thither in August 1605. Not only did the people go. Even the framework of the houses was shipped across the bay and set up in this haven of ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... day for sailing arrived. Previously to departing, Mark had carried the ship through the channel, and she was anchored in a very good and safe roadstead, outside of everything. The leave-taking took place on board her. Bridget wept long in her husband's arms, but finally got so far the command of herself, as to assume an air of encouraging firmness among the other women. By this time, it was every way so obvious Mark's ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the head of the Delta of the Volga, and it lies 580 versts above Astrakhan, which is said to be at the river's mouth, but which is still 150 versts from the roadstead or anchorage, called the Nine Feet Station; the spot on the Caspian ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... arrived opposite the British fort at Accra, and, after staying there a week, they embarked on board the Clinker, Lieutenant Matson, commander; and having sailed direct for Badagry, they dropped anchor in the roadstead in the front of that town on the 19th. From the commander of the Clinker they received a young man of colour, named Antonio, son to the chief of Bonny, who eagerly embraced the opportunity of proceeding with them into the interior, being impressed ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the sensation produced in a ship I commanded one evening on the coast of Peru, as we steered towards the roadstead of Payta. An immense balsa was dashing out before the land-wind, and sending a snowy wreath of foam before her like that which curls up before the bow of a frigate in chase. As long as she was kept before the wind, we could understand this in some degree; but when she hauled ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... to my own element, and will endeavour to describe some of the occurrences of the war in the Black Sea. The Russians had three lines of action in those waters. First, to capture Sulina, and to destroy the squadron lying at anchor in its roadstead; second, to capture Batoum and its much-envied harbour; third, the somewhat undignified action of sending out fast vessels, mostly mail-boats, armed with a couple of guns, their object being to destroy the Turkish coasting trade. These vessels were most difficult to catch, as ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... the truth," replied the Consul, "and that is what is killing him. I remained on board the steam packet that was to take him to Naples till it was out of the roadstead; a small boat brought me back. We sat for some little time taking leave of each other—for ever, I fear. God only knows how much we love the confidant of our love when she who inspired it is ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... indecent haste accompanying the whole transaction, as in the equally celebrated trial and death of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien. Cuffe remained to dine with the commander-in-chief, while Carlo Giuntotardi and his niece got into their boat and took their way through the crowded roadstead toward the Neapolitan frigate that now formed the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... roadstead from the Esplanade is very striking, and is generally alive with shipping of all kinds and nations, from the smart and trim British man-of-war to the grimy collier, and from the rakish Malay prahu to the clumsy junk laden with produce from China. These latter ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... have learned some news. There are four fine vessels in the roadstead; if you could get them, the troops would ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... the shore nine miles, and is thus exposed to the fury of the sea for this distance; for it is not on a river, like Calcutta, or a sheltered bay, like Bombay. Formerly, on the approach of a cyclone, vessels lying in the roadstead, as the only harbor it had, which was no harbor, had to put to sea to avoid being driven on the shore. Decidedly it was a very inconvenient place to build a city; but the town formerly consisted of a number of villages, ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... caul, or licence to land, which we did accordingly, and agreed with him for three per cent[377] custom, and sent goods on shore, it being determined that Mr Lucas and Mr Brown should remain there, while I went on with the ship to Masulipatam, the roadstead of which place was better. We got there on the 31st, when Zaldechar Khan sent us a licence. We agreed to send a present to Mir Sumela, a great officer under the king at Condapoli, and farmer of his revenues, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... were attacked by the Indians there, and after losing twenty killed, were forced to put to sea in two small brigantines and a caravel, which they had made from the wrecks of their ships. Coasting along the shore, they came at last to an open roadstead ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... duly arrived in the roads of San Juan, and anchored well out of gunshot from the forts, seemingly without exciting any suspicion whatever. We carefully examined the roadstead, and there, sure enough, was just the craft for our purpose; but she was lying right under the guns of the fort. She was a pretty vessel: schooner-rigged, very low in the water, and—as we found out when we took her—of very deep draught; broad in the beam, and 'flush-decked' ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... its hundred hands upon mountain, and meadow, Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together. Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village, Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead. Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr. Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting, Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from, a hundred ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... yacht was off the Palestine coast, and Joppa, seated on her cliffs, appeared over a foaming roadstead. But when a landing was effected, they were to hear that there had been a collision on the Jerusalem-Joppa railway, the line blocked, travel suspended; so, as the filthy town was congested, the Royal party took refuge in a great restaurant-tent, set ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, loving clansmen, as late he charged them, while wielded words the winsome Scyld, the leader beloved who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b} by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure fetched from far was freighted ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... It consists of two parts, an outer and tidal harbour 17-1/2 acres in extent, and an inner basin 15 acres in extent, with a depth on sill at ordinary spring tide of 25 ft. Outside these harbours is the triangular bay, which forms the roadstead of Cherbourg. The bay is admirably sheltered by the land on every side but the north. On that side it is sheltered by a huge breakwater, over 2 m. in length, with a width of 650 ft. at its base and 30 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... best of anything I have seen. In turbans and loose sea- green robes, with beautiful black-brown complexions and a stately carriage, they really are a satisfaction to my eye. The weather has been windy and rainy; the HOOPER has to lie about a mile from the town, in an open roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic driving straight on shore. The little steam launch gives all who go in her a good ducking, as she bobs about on the big rollers; and my old gymnastic practice stands me in good stead on boarding ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came off to the flagship, asking me to land as large a force as I could spare, but as General Lima had declined to supply a military detachment, it was out of my power to comply; for the roadstead being unsafe, and the flagship nearly aground, I could not dispense with the English seamen, whilst the Portuguese portion of the crews was not to be trusted. Besides which, the foreign seamen were not adapted to garrisoning ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Glenelg to the mouth of the Port River is very low, a continuous ridge of sandy dunes fringing a beautiful sea beach from which the waters recede far at low tide. The mail boats anchored in the open roadstead; passengers landed at the Semaphore jetty, cargo being placed in barges and towed up the river to Port Adelaide. It was a most unsatisfactory arrangement, and many have been the times that I got wet through when meeting the steamers. In particularly rough ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... brothers had but left the roadstead, when close beside their ship, uprose a walrus. Cormac hurled at it a pole-staff, which struck the beast, so that it sank again: but the men aboard thought that they knew its eyes for the eyes of Thorveig the witch. That walrus came up no more, but of Thorveig it was heard that ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... to Provence occupied by Iona to Scotland and Lindisfarne to Northumberland, a cradle of Christianity, a cradle rocked by the waves. I cannot do better than quote Montalembert's words on this topic. "The sailor, the soldier, or the traveller who proceeds from the roadstead of Toulon to sail towards Italy and the East, passes among two or three islands, rocky and arid, surmounted here and there by a slender cluster of pines. He looks at them with indifference, and avoids them. However, one of these islands has been for the soul, for the mind, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... ship arriving off the bar when there is not sufficient water on it for them to enter the port, will find good anchorage all round the lightship, particularly a little to the westward of it. The whole Gulf, indeed, from this point, may be considered as a safe and extensive roadstead. As regards Port Adelaide itself, I cannot imagine a securer or a more convenient harbour. Without having any broad expanse of water, it is of sufficient width for vessels to lie there in perfect safety, whether as regards the ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... responsively to this surmise, for the danger became every minute more imminent, and we knew what a terrific surf there must be then running on the shingle beach. But we now rapidly approached the shore; we were near to the floating light, and in the roadstead not a vessel remained; all had weighed and preferred being under what canvas they could bear. At last we were within two cables' lengths of the beach, and even at this distance from it we were surrounded with the breakers; the ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... during the trip on which the boilers were towed in, and it looked to Boyd less like an accident than a carefully planned move to cripple him at one stroke. The other ships were busily discharging and the roadstead was alive with small craft of various kinds, when the huge boilers were swung over the side of The Bedford Castle and blocked into position for the journey to the shore. George and a half-dozen of his men went along with the load while Emerson remained on ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... you the destiny and the vengeance of the French people." This vessel, on board of which Bonaparte was to embark, has had time to wear herself out in harbour. Others put, as a device for their flags in the roadstead, "a good wind, and thirty hours". In short, all France resounded with gasconades, of which Bonaparte ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Blue Cock sailed into the roadstead and the fort thundered a salute. Fort and vessel dipped the tricolor flag of the States-General and the municipal banner of Amsterdam. Beeckman surrendered all the country on South River to Hinoyossa, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Island, with its castle and ramparts; below, in the centre of the roadstead, lay the war ships of the Cavaliers, with the prizes they had captured, the blue expanse bordered by jutting points and fantastic rocks of various shapes, while the surrounding shores were covered with umbrageous trees, green fields, and ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... desolate, her sister but recently buried in far away Arequipa and the mother now in the sea. With a fortitude beyond her years the Christian girl bore bravely her deep sorrows, trusting in Him "who doeth all things well." When the ship reached the open roadstead of Port Harford, and she again landed on the shores of her native California, she went to her former home—a vine-clad ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... and southwest winds prevail it is not a safe anchorage for ships. A heavy surf rolling on the shore obliges vessels to seek safety by putting to sea on the appearance of a north wind. Mayaguez is also an open roadstead formed by two projecting capes. It has good anchorage for vessels of a large size and is well sheltered from the north winds. The port of Cabo Rojo has also good anchorage. It is situated S. one-fourth ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... neither handled nor fought. Ships companies of eight hundred or a thousand men could muster only from three to five hundred. Thus bad administration crippled the fighting powers of the fleet; while the unaccountable military blunder of changing the objective from a safe and accessible roadstead to a fourth-rate and exposed harbor completed the disaster by taking away the only hope of a secure base of operations during the fall and winter months. France then had no first-class port on the Channel; hence the violent westerly ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... flag, (the custom being to fire a salute of ten guns from all the ships-of-war when they came to anchor). To the great surprise of the lookout who repented then of having dispatched his assistant to the sergeant, he saw the frigate heave to, outside the roadstead, and lower a boat; this boat was propelled through the waves to the entrance of the port, while the frigate rode at anchor ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... their fervent faith in the future of Seattle. Then Port Townsend, with its beautiful harbor and gently sloping bluffs, "the city of destiny," beyond all doubt, of any of the towns on the Sound. Favored by nature in many ways, Townsend has the finest roadstead and the best anchorage ground in these waters, and this must tell in the end, when advantages for sea trade are considered. Victoria, B.C., is reached in the evening, and we sleep that night in Her Majesty's dominions. The next ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... vessels built at Antwerp) 14,000 men were to be conveyed across to England, and from Dunkirk 12,000. But where were they to effect a junction with each other and with the Spaniards? Tassis assures us that they had selected for this purpose the roadstead of Margate on the coast of Kent, a safe and convenient harbour;[270] there immediately after the Spanish armada had arrived, or as nearly as possible at the same time with it, the fleet of transports from the Netherlands ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... after the events related in the last chapter the bluff-bowed French coasting steamer, Admiral Dupont, dropped anchor in the shallow roadstead off the steamy harbor of Fort Assini on the far-famed Ivory Coast. A few days before, the boys had left Sierra Leone and engaged quarters on the cockroach-infested little craft for the voyage down the coast. It was blisteringly ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... being ready, on the 3rd of August, 1492, a half-hour before sunrise, he unmoored his little fleet in the stream, and, spreading his sails, the vessels passed out of the little river roadstead of Palos, gazed after, perhaps, in the increasing light, as the little crafts reached the ocean, by the friar of Rabida, from ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... of the roadstead, about ten or twelve miles distant from the main, is a chain of islands, of which Rottnest is the most northern. Then come some large rocks, called the Stragglers, leaving a passage out from the roadstead by the south of Rottnest; after these is Carnac, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... arrived. Caesar paid it to the pirates, and they, faithful to their covenant, sent him in a boat to the land. He was put ashore on the coast of Asia Minor. He proceeded immediately to Miletus, the nearest port, equipped a small fleet there, and put to sea. He sailed at once to the roadstead where the pirates had been lying, and found them still at anchor there, in perfect security.[1] He attacked them, seized their ships, recovered his ransom money, and took the men all prisoners. He conveyed his captives to the land, and there fulfilled ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... that so tossed and pitched the vessel that common sense dictated a run for shelter. Therefore we steered for the nearest island of the group—Fayal (the people there pronounce it Fy-all, and put the accent on the first syllable). We anchored in the open roadstead of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its snow-white houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation, and no village could look prettier or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphitheater ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to ships belonging to Amsterdam or other ports in Holland; and that foreign ships are more free in that respect, but cannot relieve themselves from the second. The pilots who bring in ships from the outside bring them to the Texel roadstead or the Helder, and others take them to Amsterdam or elsewhere; and those who take them from Amsterdam, go no further than the Texel road or the Vlie,[58] and other pilots carry them out to sea. The fee of the pilots is a guilder[59] a ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... and fro as if the steamer were immediately expected. The weather was clear, and slightly chilly. The minarets of the town loomed above the houses in the pale rays of the sun. A jetty pier, some two thousand yards along, extended into the roadstead. A number of fishing-smacks and coasting boats, some retaining the fantastic fashion of ancient galleys, were discernible on ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... Crimean war. She speaks of its harbour as one of the most remarkable in Europe. It owes all its excellence to Nature, which has here, without assistance from the science of the engineer, provided a magnificent roadstead, the branches of which form a number of basins admirably adapted for the requirements of a great naval station. The whole expanse of this noble harbour is commanded from the upper part of the town. The roadstead first catches the eye; it stretches east and west, penetrates inland to a depth of four ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... had a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion which strained her very badly. "I think," she muses, "I must have caught the moorings of a mine with my tail as I was turning, and exploded it. It is possible that it might have been a big shell ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... round the Mull of Deerness into the roadstead of Ragnvaldsvoe, in the north of South Ronaldsay, which is now known either as St. Margaret's Hope or possibly as Widewall Bay in Scapa Flow, and it was while it was there that the annular eclipse of the sun, ascertained by astronomical calculation[14] to have taken place on the 5th August ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... furtherance of the aforesaid notification and pursuant to the act referred to was issued by the minister resident of the United States in Japan forbidding American merchant vessels from stopping or anchoring at any port or roadstead in that country except the three opened ports, viz, Kanagawa (Yokohama), Nagasaki, and Hakodate, unless in distress or forced by stress of weather, as provided by treaty, and giving notice that masters of vessels ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... ocean liner, chartered by an American tourist agency for an Eastern Mediterranean tour, drops into Villefranche roadstead. These chance visits, to give the tourists a day at Nice and Monte Carlo, demonstrate that Villefranche could be a port of call for the leviathans, commercial and naval, of the twentieth century. How much easier it would be to go to the Riviera ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... more hereafter. To the eastward, and stretching down the coast, is a long sandy beach whereon the blue ripples are crumbling between the black fishing boats drawn up upon the strand. This is Phaleron, the old harbor of Athens before Themistocles fortified the "Peireus"—merely an open roadstead in fact, but still very handy for small craft, which can be hauled up promptly ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... had there been any cattle now. There the turf was smooth as velveteen, padded and holed by the rabbits. The field itself was coarse, and crowded with tall, big cowslips that had never been cut. Clusters of strong flowers rose everywhere above the coarse tussocks of bent. It was like a roadstead crowded with ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... appearance of a French fleet. At length the masts and spars of several line-of-battle ships came in view. Still the frigate stood on till a three-decker—an eighty-gun ship— three seventy-fours, four frigates, and three brigs were counted. The little English frigate paraded up and down before the roadstead, but none ventured out to attack her. It was the French squadron ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... plain. Ahead of them the turquoise waters were dotted by islets whose heights were densely overgrown, while sands of coral whiteness ringed their shore lines. Here and there a fleet of fishing-boats drifted. Far out in the roadstead lay two cruisers, slate-gray and grim. The waters over-side purled soothingly, the heavens beamed, the breeze was like a gentle caress. The excursionists lost themselves in ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... flag. No one could possibly take the Almirante Recalde for anything but a Spanish ship. There was no reason for suspecting the presence of an enemy, for Spain had none in these seas. If there were other ships in the roadstead, for the harbor of La Guayra was really nothing more than an open road, the buccaneer could easily dispose of them in their unprepared condition. Indeed, Morgan rather hoped that there might be others, for, after he captured them, he would have a greater force of guns to train upon the forts ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... than 600 miles in length, extending round three sides of the peninsula. The climate of the eastern coast is rendered torrid by the heat of the Gulf Stream, which sweeps between it and the island of Cuba. The principal port, Progreso, is an open roadstead where no shelter is obtained, the old abandoned port of Sisal being superior. Some score of miles off the north-east coast is the island of Cozumel, where Cortes first landed on his voyage of the Conquest. Yucatan contains the remarkable ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... national interests, have devoted themselves to finding a means of enlarging it, not by dredging new basins, which would prove ruinous to the budget and useless in twenty years, but by installing a true roadstead at the entrance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... this was made plain to us as we fetched our way round to the eastward and came out upon the face of a steep hill that broke away in steep cliffs to the very foreshore. There, below us, lay a neat deep-water roadstead covered to westward by a small island with a tower on it and a battery. The shore ran out towards the island, and the two had been joined by a mole, or the makings of one, about thirty yards long; and well back in the bight of the shore, where it curved towards us, was a half-built town, all of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... in the month of November, 1853, when the noble steamship Texas cast anchor in the open roadstead of Vera Cruz, under the lee of the low island on which stands the famous fortress of San Juan de Ulua. Hard by lay a British vessel ready to steam out into the teeth of the storm, as soon as the officers should receive from us ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... There were wired-in entrenchments with strong points here and there, and a series of communication trenches and redoubts behind them for 3000 yards to Sheikh Hasan, which was the port of Gaza, if you can so describe an open roadstead with no landing facilities. From Rafa Redoubt the contour of the sand dunes permitted the enemy to construct an exceedingly strong line running due south for 2000 yards, the strongest points being named by us Zowaid trench, El Burj trench, Triangle trench, Peach Orchard, and El Arish Redoubt, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... battle of the Pharsalia, had followed Pompey, but had failed to catch him. When he came upon the scene in the roadstead at Alexandria, the murder had been effected. He then disembarked, and there, as circumstances turned out, was doomed to fight another campaign in which he nearly lost his life. It is not a part of my plan to write the life of Caesar, nor to meddle with it further than I am driven ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... black, rotund little steamboat which was to take me to the island of Re. It was called the Jean Guiton. It started with angry puffings, passed between the two old towers which guard the harbor, crossed the roadstead and issued from the mole built by Richelieu, the great stones of which can be seen at the water's edge, enclosing the town like a great necklace. Then the steamboat turned to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Lending him what little clothing they could spare among them as a slight protection against the rapidly cooling air, they agreed to land him in the morning; and without further delay, for it was growing late, they made again towards the roadstead ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... squadron, the good old flagship Olympia, on which Commodore Dewey had fought the battle of Manila Bay, standing bravely out from among her sister ships the Chicago, the Tonopah and the old frigate Hartford anchored along the roadstead. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... enemy that the Karteria was to be dreaded, even after receiving the greatest injury. A favourable opportunity fortunately offered itself of displaying the power of the steamer to Ibrahim Pasha's camp at Patras. On approaching the roadstead, a brig heavily laden was seen at anchor, which had evidently arrived the preceding night, little expecting that the Greek squadron would quit the gulf in the daytime. Hastings immediately made every preparation for cutting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... two good reasons for it," growled the senor, gloomily. "One is that there isn't any harbor here. Nothing but an open roadstead, exposed to all the storms that come, so that to anchor off Vera Cruz is to run a fair chance of being wrecked. The other is that my unfortunate country has no navy. There isn't a Mexican vessel afloat that would care to go ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... in twenty-four hours, and as the falucha let go in the roadstead I tore up my memorandum of instructions (which I had carefully committed to memory) and threw the ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... is rendered difficult both by sudden storms and by the absence of good bays and ports. [v.03 p.0216] The principal port on the western shore, Listvinichnoe, near the outflow of the Angara, is an open roadstead at the foot of steep mountains. Steamers ply from it weekly to Misovaya (Posolskoe) on the opposite shore, a few times a year to Verkhne-Angarsk, at the northern extremity of the lake, and frequently to the mouth of the Selenga. Steamers ascend this river as far as Bilyutai, near the Mongolian ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... ultra-marine expanse of tropical seas, I thought longingly of the green island for which we were heading. We reached Carlisle Bay, Barbados, at daybreak on a glorious June morning, and waited impatiently in the roadstead (there is no harbour in Barbados) for the liberating visit of the medical officer from the shore. He arrived, gave one glance at our bill-of-health, and sternly refused pratique, so the hateful yellow flag remained fluttering at the fore in ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... Although Ceara is the principal seaport at which lines of English, French, American, Brazilian, and other steamers regularly call, prior to the commencement of the harbor improvements it was almost an open roadstead, passengers and goods having to be conveyed by lighters and boats between vessels and the shore. The official statistics of the trade and shipping of the port show that an income of L35,750 per annum will be collected by the Ceara harbor corporation from the dues which they are authorized ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... and reorganized crews, Paul Jones was ready to sail from the roadstead of Isle de Groaix, in the early part of August, 1779, bound upon his cruise around the British Islands. There were four ships in this squadron: the Good Richard; the Alliance, under Pierre Landais ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... showing waveringly, in a sort of mirage, over the low land which forms the easternmost extremity of the island of Tierra Bomba. It is this same island of Tierra Bomba, by the way, which converts what would otherwise be an open roadstead into a landlocked harbour, for it forms the western side of the harbour, and serves as a natural breakwater, sheltering the roadstead very effectually when the wind happens to blow from the westward. Also, being roughly triangular in shape, its eastern and western sides each measuring about ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... necessities of the Government requiring the transportation of troops and supplies for the Indian war then existing, steamboats were chartered by the Government, and made their first appearance at Chicago, then an open roadstead, in which they were exposed to the full sweep of northerly storms the whole length ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... glide toward me swiftly. The whole great roadstead to the right was just a mere flicker of blue, and the dim cool hall swallowed me up out of the heat and glare of which I had not been aware till the very moment I passed in ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... and neither too deep, shallow, or exposed for ships to ride in safety upon; also the set of anchors belonging to a ship; also a royal duty levied from vessels coming to a port or roadstead for the use of its advantages. It is generally marked on the charts by an anchor, and described according to its attributes of good, snug, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... extension of their naval bases leaves no doubt as to their meaning. The great military harbour of Rosyth is admittedly built for the eventuality of a war with Germany, and can mean nothing else. Harwich has also been recently made into an especially strong naval base, and, further, the roadstead of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Isles has been enlarged into a cruiser station. These are measures so directly and obviously directed against us that they demand an inquiry into the military ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... remembered thinking what a fine little man the Captain was; that their sailing together was done.... A sympathetic disorder was brewing deep down on the ocean floor; the water now had a charged appearance, and was foul as the roadstead along the mouths of the Godivari—a thick, whipped, yeasty look. The changes were very rapid. Every few seconds, Bedient glanced at the Captain, and as often followed his gaze into the churning, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... the Pruth, lying in the roadstead of Sebastopol, received a cargo of mines and was put under the command of officers who for a number of years past had been training on board the Russian depot ship in Constantinople and therefore had become familiar with the ins and outs of ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... thickly populated Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making good headway over the clear water, it is not long before we find ourselves passing beneath the wave-washed precipices of the Salto, and well within our time limit of two hours we reach the roadstead of the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright and busy world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses coloured coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and the pale green transparent water lies a long stretch ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... was to be seen on all sides but sickness, and the misery consequent upon the dilapidation of the pretty caps and bonnets of the fair Providencials. Never was a party of pleasure-seekers in a more woe-begone plight than was this of ours when we arrived in the open roadstead of the most inhospitable-looking shores of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... investigations as to the existence of a harbor fit for the shelter and victualling of ships bound from Hong-Kong to Singapore. He reported that Labuan, a small island north of Borneo, was in every way suitable; that it was about equidistant from the two parts; that it had a fine harbor, or rather roadstead; that it was healthy; that it abounded in coal of the best quality; that, finally, the Sultan stood pledged to convey ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... you understand. The small steamer—by name the P.M. Diaz—drops anchor a short mile out in a half-protected roadstead, and discharges what she has to discharge, or lades what she has to lade, by boats. Her ladings during the banana-harvest are feverish, tumultuous, vociferous. Her ladings during the sleepy remainder of the year comprise canned meats, Scotch whisky, illustrated magazines, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Nome, passengers were arriving there almost daily on board veritable coffin-ships, in which I would not willingly navigate the Serpentine. Shipping disasters have been frequent not only at sea, but also while landing here, for Nome has no harbour, but merely an open, shallow roadstead, fully exposed to the billows of the ocean. There is therefore frequently a heavy surf along the beach, and here many a poor miner has been drowned within a few yards of the Eldorado he has risked his all ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... ardent admirer of his. It was this love which indirectly sent him to his death. Lord Carteret had given him a picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he started for England; but he never reached that country. The remnant of the Swedish fleet lay in the roadstead at Goeteborg, under the guns of the two forts, New and Old Elfsborg. While Tordenskjold was away at Marstrand, the enemy sallied forth and snapped up seven of the smaller vessels of his blockading fleet. The news made him furious. He sent in, demanding them back at once, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... cities; the second is separated from it by a small passage; and the third, like a real harbor, is seen far back. The last named is called Avernus, and the middle bay Lucrinus: the outer one belongs to the Tyrrhenian Sea and takes its name from that water. In this roadstead within the other two, which had but narrow entrances then, Agrippa, by cutting channels close along the shore through the land separating Lucrinus from the sea on each side, produced harbors affording most safe anchorage ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... vessel, with reefed sails and yards crossed over her masts, drawn by a tug from Marseilles, rocking over a sweep of rolling waves which subsided gently on becoming calm, passed in front of the Chateau d'If, then under all the gray rocks of the roadstead, which the setting sun covered with a golden vapor; and she entered the ancient port, in which are packed together, side by side, ships from every part of the world, pell mell, large and small, of every shape and every variety of rigging, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... opened. The distance from this harbor on the Gulf of Mexico to Aguas Calientes is a trifle over four hundred miles. With the improvements already under way, it will be rendered the best seaport on the Gulf, infinitely superior, especially in point of safe anchorage, to the open roadstead of Vera Cruz. Every ton of freight is now landed at the latter port by lighters, and must continue to be so from the nature of the coast; while in a couple of years at farthest Tampico will have a most excellent harbor, perfectly sheltered, where the largest steamships ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... of Cumana is a roadstead capable of receiving the fleets of Europe. The whole of the Gulf of Cariaco, which is about 35 miles long and 48 broad, affords excellent anchorage. The Pacific is not more calm on the shores of Peru, than the Caribbean Sea from Porto-cabello, and especially from Cape ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... in a farm-house at Camargue, Menoul went to Marseilles, and that very evening discovered, from some of his sailor friends, that a three-masted American vessel was in the roadstead, whose commander, Captain Warth, a not over-scrupulous Yankee, would be glad to welcome on board an able-bodied man who would be of assistance to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... force consists of two small ships, two brigs, fifty prows large and small, and about one thousand men. There is water on the bar to admit vessels drawing nine feet water. The roadstead, with seven fathoms water on it, lies seven miles from the river's mouth. Care must be taken not to mistake the Pongole river seen from the offing, and which lies ten miles farther southward. The only stock procurable ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... an air of unromantic bufferism. He refrained from entering Avice's peninsula for the whole fortnight of Somers's stay in the neighbouring town, although its grey poetical outline—'throned along the sea'—greeted his eyes every morn and eve across the roadstead. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... the statement which has been made that asphyxiation of the inhabitants preceded the burning of the city. The gas being sulphureted hydrogen, was ignited by lightning or the fires in the city. The same tornado drove the ships in the roadstead to the bottom of the sea or burned them before ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... with distress on her sister's account, rendered the more acute by reflecting that the means of saving her were in her power, but were such as her conscience prohibited her from using,—tossed, in short, like a vessel in an open roadstead during a storm, and, like that vessel, resting on one only sure cable and anchor,—faith in Providence, and a resolution to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... during our three days' stay at Funchal. The process of coaling ship there is a tedious one, the port being an open roadstead, and there are no wharves. With a moderate breeze blowing on or along shore, all communication is interrupted. Loading and unloading ships is accomplished by lighters; and passengers are carried to and ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... the British fleet with interest. It lay in the roadstead, just off York Bay, and the sight of the warships was indeed alluring. He asked questions about the fleet, being careful to inquire as if actuated merely by curiosity, and he also managed to secure information as to the number of soldiers in ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... Alexander, all was suspense and suspicion. It seemed possible that disaster instead of triumph was in store for them through the treachery of the commander-in-chief. Four and twenty hours and more, they had been lying in that dangerous roadstead, and although the weather had been calm and the sea tranquil, there seemed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... harbour nor roadstead, but only a small bay or cove, appropriately called Gulfe de la Napoul; and it is indeed worthy of its name, being a miniature Bay of Naples,—but without its Vesuvius. It is, however, so shallow that the coasting vessels that use it are obliged to anchor at some distance from the ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... while the Peloponnesians came up, chanting the paean for their victory as they sailed on; the single Athenian ship remaining being chased by a Leucadian far ahead of the rest. But there happened to be a merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the Athenian ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase amidships and sank her. An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in the excitement ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... about midnight, Zarathustra went his way over the ridge of the isle, that he might arrive early in the morning at the other coast; because there he meant to embark. For there was a good roadstead there, in which foreign ships also liked to anchor: those ships took many people with them, who wished to cross over from the Happy Isles. So when Zarathustra thus ascended the mountain, he thought on the way of his many solitary wanderings ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... fertile rising ground, still occupied with country houses and covered with groves of olive and orange trees, falling off in a gentle slope towards the plain, and terminating towards the sea in a sea-girt promontory. Lying in the heart of the great North-African roadstead, the Gulf of Tunis, at the very spot where that beautiful basin affords the best anchorage for vessels of larger size, and where drinkable spring water is got close by the shore, the place proved singularly favourable for agriculture and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... storm, which continued for many days, came upon them; the promised bark was driven to sea; the open roadstead, where the larger ships were compelled to anchor, made Roanoke an undesirable location, and as the time had long expired when the promised reinforcements should have arrived from England, this disappointment, together with the hostilities of the Indians, so discouraged ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... drink! I ask you, has a British official any authority over an American vessel lying in the roadstead? Will a foreign official dare to set foot on an American deck when an American skipper orders him not ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... safely thence when outward-bound. That unclipperly craft, moreover, was a gallant vessel, because its post was one of danger. When other ships fled on the wings of terror—or of storm trysails—to seek refuge in harbour and roadstead, this one merely lengthened her cable—as a knight might shake loose the reins of his war-horse on the eve of conflict—and calmly awaited the issue, prepared to let the storm do its worst, and to meet it with a bold front. It lay right in the Channel, too, "i' the imminent deadly breach," ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... "I am the captain of a little trading schooner, the Nell Gwynn, which anchors in the roadstead till I have laid some private business before your excellency and can get on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Princes his sons, and his Ministers, who were again at the station to see him off a little later. Suez was reached in the evening and, amid elaborate preparations from the Pasha of that place, crowds of people and illuminated men-of-war in the roadstead, the Prince and his party boarded the Serapis and, accompanied by the Osborne, proceeded on the voyage to Aden. Perim, which has been described as "a gigantic blistered clinker," was reached and passed on October 31st, and from the ship the Prince got his first view of Her Majesty's Indian ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... Prahsu with his head-quarter staff. The Himalaya and Tamar, with the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, which had been cruising about outside for sanitary reasons, now came into the roadstead, where the Sarmatian, with the 42nd Highlanders, was already lying, and everything was ready for ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... steamed into a certain roadstead one evening where lay more huge battleships, cruisers and smaller armored vessels than Whistler and his mates had ever seen before. They flew the flags of three nations, and they were prepared to move en masse upon the enemy at the ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... to Sarzeau was made rapidly enough, thanks to one of those little corsairs of which D'Artagnan had been told during his voyage, and which, shaped for fast sailing and destined for the chase, were sheltered at that time in the roadstead of Loc-Maria, where one of them, with a quarter of its war-crew, performed duty between Belle-Isle and the continent. D'Artagnan had an opportunity of convincing himself that Porthos, though engineer and topographer, was ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... resumed the route round the bay, toward the little town of Eden, five miles distant. The postilions stopped not far from the lighthouse, which marks the entrance of the port. Several vessels were moored in the roadstead, but none of them bore ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... junks behind me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... deserves for this wandering critic and no more, I will take the liberty of saying that there is art, and a great deal of art, in the site of the clean town; and that there is society, and good society, in that forest of spars in the roadstead, and in the fishing and shooting in the neighbourhood. When the Tauchnitz editions have been exhausted, and when the stranger has mastered Cervantes and Lope de Vega, Espronceda, Larra, and Rivas, there is always that book which Dr. Johnson loved, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... Even the old dangerous roadstead, and far-falling tides of the Mersey, proved an advantage to Liverpool; by driving the inhabitants to commence the construction of Docks before any other port in the kingdom, and thus obtain a certain name and position in the mercantile world, from having set an example which cities provided ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot be approached by ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... coffee and bread, and then report myself at the wharf, where I was due at 3 a.m. About half an hour later we would man a lighter, pick up a thick Manila rope from the bottom of the river, lay it between the chocks, and haul out across the bar to the roadstead where the ships were anchored. From the main warp others branched off in various directions, and by means of one of these we would get as close to the ship which we were discharging as we could. Then the lighter would be ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... while, and Cornelia's healthy cheeks of red were found to have diminished their colour to the size of a wafer and the quality of a stain. The Speedwell entered the breakwater at Cherbourg to find the schooner already in the roadstead; and by the time the steamer was brought up Ethelberta could see the men on board the yacht clewing up and making things snug in a way from which she inferred that they were not going to leave the harbour again that day. With the aspect of a fair galleon that could easily out-manoeuvre her persevering ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... entered the roadstead at Gibraltar, and anchored in the shadow of the famous rock. Here the Americans found two of the most rapacious of the Tripolitan corsairs lying at anchor; one a ship of twenty-six guns under the command of the Tripolitan admiral, and the other a brig of sixteen guns. To keep an eye ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead — I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... cliff of 'terns' or 'sea-swallows' (Sterna hirundo), by the northern barbarian termed, from its ruddy tints, Brazen Head. Here opens the well-known view perpetuated by every photographer—first the blue bay, then the sheet of white houses gradually rising in the distance. We anchor in the open roadstead fronting the Fennel-field ('Funchal'), concerning which the Spaniard ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Singapore in the "Kembang Djepoon" (Rose of Japan), a schooner belonging to a Chinese merchant, manned by a Javanese crew, and commanded by an English captain, that we cast anchor in the dangerous roadstead of Bileling on the north side of the island of Bali. Going on shore with the captain and the Chinese supercargo, I was at once introduced to a novel and interesting scene. We went first to the house ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Arles, where yet he hoped would ride The fleet which him to Africa might bear; Nor in the port nor offing ships espied, Nor Saracens save dead beheld he there. For Agramant had swept the roadstead wide, And burnt what vessels in the haven were. Rogero takes the road, when his hope fails, Along the sea-beat shore ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... properly called the Filipinas begin at the large island of Burnei, not far from Malaca, which serves as a roadstead for the Portuguese who sail for Maluco. This island extends from the first or second degree on the south of the equinoctial line to about the eighth degree on the north side. The Mahometan king of this island, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... The Roadstead, or Great Harbour, of Sebastopol runs due eastwards inland from a point not far from the south-western extremity of the Crimea. One mile from the open sea its waters divide, the larger arm still running ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... first hurricane entering unbarred windows carried their roofs to the sea. In Charles Town, the capital since the submergence of James Town in 1680, are the remains of large town houses and fine old stone walls, which one can hardly see from the roadstead, so thick are the royal palms and the cocoanut trees among the ruins, wriggling their slender bodies through every crevice and flaunting their glittering luxuriance above every ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... his movements from the enemy's outposts; and the French vanguard pushed along the coastline even as far as Voltri. This movement was designed to coerce the Senate of Genoa into payment of a fine for its acquiescence in the seizure of a French vessel by a British cruiser within its neutral roadstead; but it served to alarm Beaulieu, who, breaking up his cantonments, sent a strong column towards that city. At the time this circumstance greatly annoyed Bonaparte, who had hoped to catch the Imperialists dozing in their winter quarters. Yet it is certain that the hasty move of their left flank ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... cathedral, where sins were confessed, the archbishop's blessing received, and Cartier given a Godspeed to the music of full choirs chanting invocation. Three days later anchors were hoisted. Cannon boomed. Sails swung out; and the vessels sheered away from the roadstead while cheers rent ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... anchor was let go, but the vessel continued to set off from the land, until her dark hull was seen resting on the glossy surface of the lake, full a quarter of a mile beyond the low bluff which formed the eastern extremity of what might be called the outer harbor or roadstead. Here the influence of the river current ceased, and ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... at Fort George and Castle Cornet from the day succeeding the bailiff's death to that of his funeral, on which days also the bells of the parish church of St. Peter-Port were tolled, and the flags of the vessels in the two harbours and roadstead were hoisted half mast. On the day of the interment, the shops in St. Peter-Port were entirely closed until ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... to me a more bustling town than Copenhagen itself; and I suppose that arises from the number of sailors connected with the vessels in the roadstead, who are to be met in the narrow lanes and alleys of the town; and here all the pilots in Denmark mostly wait for ships ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... All foreigners paid double. And since, in addition to ships putting in from abroad, it sometimes happened that two hundred sail of coasters would be driven by easterly gales to shelter in St. Lide's Harbour, or roadstead, or in Cromwell's Sound, you may guess that this made a very pleasant addition to the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a deep and still bight, wooded to the water's edge; and lying in the roadstead a caravel, and three boats by her. And at that sight there was not a man but was on deck at once, and not a mouth but was giving its opinion of what should be done. Some were for sailing right into the roadstead, the breeze blowing fresh toward the shore (as ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and the bailiff walked towards the little earthen mole, that partially protects the roadstead of Vevey, and which is for ever forming and for ever washing away before the storms of winter, in order to consult some of those who were believed to be expert in detecting the symptoms that precede any important changes of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... thought the plan a good one, but Buonaparte suggested a better. He remarked: "All that you want is to force the English to evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them in the town, which must involve a long series of operations, try and establish batteries which shall sweep the harbour and the roadstead. If you can only drive away the ships, the troops will not remain." Buonaparte contrived to conduct the works according to his own plan, and his genius decided the fate of Toulon. After a series of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... anchorage for the fleet, and to prosecute their enterprise from this near and reasonably secure base. Referring to this first project, d'Orvilliers wrote: "We will seek the enemy at St. Helen's,[70] and then, if I find that roadstead unoccupied, or make myself master of it, I will send word to Marshal De Vaux, at Le Havre, and inform him of the measures I will take to insure his passage, which [measures] will depend upon the position of the English main fleet [dependront ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... provided with a certificate from the proper inspecting officer of that district; but if, after proceeding on her voyage, she returns to the port or place of departure, or enters any other port, river, or roadstead in the State, the said vessel shall be again inspected, and pay a fee of five dollars, as if she had undergone no previous examination and received ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... accompanied by such insolent taunts that the blood of the Venetian sailors was so stirred that Pisani could no longer restrain them. After obtaining leave from the doge to go out and give battle, he sailed into the roadstead on the 25th. The two fleets drew up in line of battle, facing each other. Just as the combat was about to commence a strange panic seized the Genoese, and, without exchanging a blow or firing a shot, they fled hastily. Pisani pursued them for some miles, and then ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... eight o'clock gun-fire, I directed the chain to be slipped, and the fasts to the shore cut, and put her under steam. The enemy being on my starboard bow, and apparently standing towards the north point of the roadstead, I headed her for the south point, giving her full steam. So much on the qui vive were the townspeople, that we had scarcely moved twenty yards when a shout rent the air, and there was a confused murmur of voices, as ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... ships belonged to Fowey at that period. The twin forts of Fowey were erected in the reign of Edward IV to protect the roadstead from the ravages of the French. Standing something like those below Dartmouth, on each side of the water, a thick boom or chain stretched across the mouth of the river would be sufficient protection against vessels propelled by sails. The last gallant action performed ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... and priests, of whom there were eight, they made this youth mount Calvete's mule, and went on without more delay to Igualada. There they were informed that the galleys had arrived the day before at Barcelona, whence they would sail in two days, unless the insecurity of the roadstead compelled them to make an earlier departure. On account of this news, they rose next morning before the sun, although they had not slept all night in consequence of a circumstance which had occurred ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... London, where extensive harbour works are being constructed, I was landed at Port Elizabeth (after three days' knocking about at sea) on the 18th, being let down, like St. Paul, in a basket, from the deck of the Anglian to the tug, which took me to the pier in the open roadstead. Right glad was I to get on ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... Captain Mller had better success. Throughout September and October she haunted the coasts of India and harried British trade, setting fire to an oil-tank at Madras, torpedoing a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer in the roadstead of Penang, and capturing in all some seventeen British merchantmen. She had, however, lost her own attendant colliers about 25 October, and a raid on the Cocos or Keeling islands on 9 November was interrupted by the arrival of H.M.S. Sydney, which ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... free from anxiety. It was true that his ships were repaired, but many of his men remained on land to recover their strength, and but a small number of able-bodied seamen remained on board with him. The roadstead being lined with coral, great precautions were necessary to save the cables from being cut, but in spite of them, at new moon, a sudden tempest arose and broke the ship loose. The anchors held well, but the hawsers gave way, and the Centurion was carried ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Highness.' The Dey raged at this bold repartee, and began to speak of bowstrings and the ministers of death. 'Kill me, if you will,' replied Keppel, pointing through the open window to his squadron riding in the roadstead, 'and there are ships enough to burn your city and provide me with a glorious funeral pile.' Keppel's firmness had the result of checking the Algerian piracies for a time, but during the long wars between the Powers which were shortly resumed, these were overlooked in the press ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... and crew with the proceeds of his personal holdings in the vessel. He sailed for Ombay Pass; after a period of magnificent sailorizing and superhuman effort he floated the ship and patched her so that she would stay afloat. When he appeared off Batavia roadstead with the 'Speedwell' under topgallant-sails, it was the sensation of the port; and when it transpired what he intended to do with her, the news flew like wildfire about the China Sea. For he proposed to hold the ship as salvage; and nothing, apparently, could ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... supported on strong wooden pillars in front, where he was wont to sit, smoking his pipe, and enjoying a view of the ocean he still loved full well, with the ships—their white canvas spread to the breeze—sailing by in the distance, or approaching to take shelter in our roadstead. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... the roadstead of St. Valery, at the mouth of the Somme. But the winds were long hostile, and the rains fell ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time we arrived in the roadstead of Yokohama—not so very long ago a small fishing village, but now an important city—and made fast to our buoy. Instantly the ship was surrounded by sampans, and the occupants, not a few of whom were Chinese, swarmed aboard, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... diminished in its riches, and appears mostly a heap of ruins, except the church of St Mark, and two or three more, which still look tolerably well. What helps to give it a very desolate appearance is, that the houses near the sea are only covered with mats. Being situated on the sea-shore, in an open roadstead, it has no fortifications of any kind to defend or command the anchorage, the Spaniards thinking it sufficiently secured by the heavy surf, and the rocky bottom near the shore, which threaten inevitable destruction to any European ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... steaming we arrived in the open roadstead of Hokitika, on the west coast of the middle island of New Zealand, and five minutes after the anchor was down a little tug came alongside to take away our steerage passengers—three hundred diggers. The gold-fields ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... a sight of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights of seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all around the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails upon the water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was soaked through ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... (Ch. 9.) "The roadstead was in front of a level strand, bordered with lofty trees, and coming on to blow at night, they were in the utmost danger till sunrise: but running then to the south, they came in sight of a safe harbour[1]; ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... commemorate the event, a lofty headland that they had just passed, was called Bounty Cape. On the following day the ships, for the first time since they had quitted the English coast, dropped anchor in a roadstead, which was called the Bay of the Hecla and Griper; and the crews landed on the largest of a group of islands, which Captain Parry named Melville Island. The ensigns and pendants were hoisted, as soon ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... the Batavia hove-to in the evening with the intention of anchoring the next morning in the roadstead of St Helena. Philip, when he went on deck to keep the middle watch, found the old priest at the gangway waiting for him. In the ship all was quiet; the men slumbered between the guns, and Philip, with his new acquaintance, went aft, and seating themselves on a ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shore are several high wooden structures with platforms on the top. They are built to enable the pilots or boatmen to take a survey of the roadstead and the sands beyond, that they may see ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... harbour to enter, we sent the boat on shore with twenty-five men to obtain water, but it was not possible to land without endangering the boat, on account of the immense high surf thrown up by the sea, as it was an open roadstead. Many of the natives came to the beach, indicating by various friendly signs that we might trust ourselves on shore. One of their noble deeds of friendship deserves to be made known to your Majesty. A young sailor was attempting to swim ashore ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... eyes to see there are between Scoras and Scrivia great geographical and linguistical resemblances,—to say nothing of the probability, amounting almost to certainty, that the Carthaginian fleet was moored in the Gulf of Spezzia or the roadstead of Genoa. I could understand these patient researches if there were any doubt as to the battle of Canna; but inasmuch as the results of that great battle are known, why blacken paper with all these suppositions (which are, as it were, the arabesques of hypothesis) while the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... immediate delivery of the anchor and cable,—upon the plea of his seignoral rights of flotsam and jetsam. Now the idea was as preposterous as the demand was impudent. We had picked up the anchor in the roadstead of a foreign power, about fifteen hundred miles distant ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sea breaks violently with an easterly and east-north-easterly wind. On the north side there lies a small island where one must run close along, in order to come before the town; then the ships run behind that bank and lie in a very good roadstead. The bay is very full of fish, [chiefly] of cod, so that the governor before named has told me that when the people have a desire for fish they send out two or three persons in a sloop, whom they remunerate for their trouble, and who bring them in three or four hours' time as much fish as the whole ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... were concentred in the gloomy streets of a town in those days choked up within its narrow girdle of fortifications. The most peculiar feature about this small dark town is, that it lies exactly between two broad seas of light, between the marvellous mirror of its roadstead and its glorious amphitheatre of mountains, baldheaded, of a dazzling grey, that blinds you in the noonday sun. All the gloomier look the streets themselves. Such as do not lead straight to the harbour and draw some light therefrom, are plunged at all hours in deep gloom. Filthy byeways, and small ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... another was already throwing a rope to the shore, as the ship with the gay sails approached the little roadstead. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in the evening, we find ourselves next morning in the handsome roadstead of Bona. This, for the present, will terminate our examination of the coast, for, however fond we may be of level traveling, we cannot reasonably expect to get over the Atlas Mountains by hugging the shore. The harbor of Bona, though broad and beautiful, is somewhat dangerous, concealing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... roadstead of Minden at the mouth of the Loire, on the 15th of November, for the La Plata river, where he hoped to find two Spanish vessels, the Esmeralda and the Liebre. But scarcely had the Boudeuse gained ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... fog of June, and not of November. On a high head-land of the coast of Devonshire, stood a little station-house, which had been erected with a view to communicate by signals, with the shipping, that sometimes lay at anchor in an adjacent roadstead. A little inland, was a village, or hamlet, that it suits our purposes to call Wychecombe; and at no great distance from the hamlet itself, surrounded by a small park, stood a house of the age of Henry VII., which was the abode of Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... darker spots Upon their wrinkled sides; the jaded horse Stumbled upon loose, rattling, fallen stones, Amidst the gathering dusk, and blindly fared Through the weird, perilous pass. As darkness waxed, And an oppressive mystery enwrapped The roadstead and the rocks, Sir Tannhauser Fancied he saw upon the mountain-side The fluttering of white raiment. With a sense Of wild joy and horror, he gave pause, For his sagacious horse that reeked of sweat, Trembling in every limb, confirmed his thought, That nothing human scaled ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... St. Miguel, when Raleigh was left to watch the roadstead, while Essex pushed inland. While Raleigh lay here, a great Indian carrack of sixteen hundred tons, laden with spices, knowing nothing of the English invasion, blundered into the middle of what she took to be a friendly Spanish ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... on the evening of the 26th of June, the battalion embarked aboard the Imperial, which, with steam up, was due to leave the Toulon roadstead at daybreak. At the moment of getting under weigh, the officer in charge of the luggage, who was the last to leave the shore, brought several despatches aboard the ship, and handed to Lieutenant de Prerolles a telegram, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... adapted than it is, from its facility of entrance and depth of water close to the shore, for steamers to run straight in, receive their fuel and water from the quay, and proceed on their voyage without loss of time; while the roadstead of Mokha, [40] the only other station which could possibly be made available for the purpose, is at all times open and insecure, and in certain points of the wind, particularly when it blows from the south through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various |
