"Piracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his behaviour in these sportive moods one may judge what he was capable of on serious occasions. He was a fair sample of the Barbary monarchs. The foreign policy of these wretches was summed up in piracy and blackmail. Their corsairs swept the Mediterranean and ventured far out upon the ocean, capturing merchant vessels, and murdering or enslaving their crews. Of the rich booty, a fixed proportion was paid over to ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may in some degree be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious inclosure every production which could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... poignantly unhappy. He was fixed under the same roof with the man that had taken his love by piracy; he must greet him affably and reverently every day; he must live in daily contemplation of the time when he must meet Masanath also as his sovereign—the wife of the prince, whom he must serve till death. Hardest of all, he must wear a serene countenance and cover his sorrow most surely, for ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... 6,000 pounds per annum by the improvement of the rents. This charity was given for the maintenance of fourscore old men, who were to be either gentlemen by descent reduced to poverty, soldiers by sea or land, merchants who had suffered by piracy or shipwreck, or servants of the King's household, and were to be fifty years of age and upwards at their admission, except maimed soldiers, who are capable of being admitted at forty years of age. Nor are any to be admitted ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... this discovery by the public, there happened one of the periodical outbreaks of English journalism against the "American" system of literary piracy, and simultaneously the visit of a committee of the American publishers deputed by the government of the United States to study out an arrangement for a treaty of international copyright on the basis of equality ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... estimates that they could easily carry 8,000 men at a trip. [Footnote: Mr. Cust says: "There are three classes of steamers on the Caspian. 1, the Imperial war steamers with which Russia keeps down piracy; 2, the steamers of the Caucasus and Mercury Company, very numerous and large vessels; 3, petroleum vessels—each steamer with ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... of piracy; I have a complete answer to that charge; but as an Englishman I claim an Englishman's right—a fair trial before a jury of my countrymen. In any case, Mr. Clive, it would be invidious to give me worse treatment than Monaji Angria and his officers. As for the rest, it depends on the evidence ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... seize the ship. I overheard some of their plans. They would have done it, storm or no storm. There was a plot to take the Ramona, put off all who would be in the way, take her to some port, change her name and engage her in what amounted to piracy." ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the king to state their side of the contention. They deny some of Rada's statements, and excuse their action in other matters, casting the blame for many evils on the treachery of the natives. They claim that they are protecting the friendly Indians, and have nearly broken up the robbery and piracy formerly prevalent among those peoples. They assert that the natives are well supplied with food, clothing, and gold, and that the tribute levied is moderate, and not a burden on the people; also that it is regulated according to the relative wealth ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... large amount to obtain his liberty. Although the exploit which has been described was among the most important performed at that period, Captain Benbow and his subordinates employed themselves in putting down piracy for the remainder of their stay ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... francs. Literary works were not at that time properly protected, and it was the province of the Society of Men of Letters to demand from the Government an effective defense against the "hideous piracy" of foreign countries. Balzac was admitted to the Society in 1839,—although with no small difficulty, for he had many enemies, and received only fifty-three votes, while forty-five were necessary for election,—but it was not long before he had made his influence felt and had been chosen ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... this was not known in America when we declared war. It is with great difficulty we realize it now. We had seen Germany going from infamy to infamy. We did know of the violated treaty of Belgium, of the piracy, the murder of women and children, the destruction of the property and lives of our neutral citizens, and finally the plain declaration of the German Imperial Government that it would wantonly and purposely destroy the property and lives ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... He alludes to an action for piracy brought by Mr. Power (the publisher of my musical works), to the trial of which I had been ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sentiment existed in favor of putting an end at once to the traffic in human being; the Christian consciences of our forefathers revolted at its wickedness, and there was then beginning a general movement throughout the civilized world against it. Some European countries had denounced it as piracy. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... as a midshipman under Commodore McKenzie on the brig-of-war Somers. On the coast of Africa a mutiny was discovered, and as, on examination, young Spencer was found at the head of it, and papers discovered in his cabin revealed the plan of seizing the ship and using it in a career of piracy, the young man, in spite of his connection with a member of the Cabinet, was hanged at the yard-arm ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... reports the territorial and offshore waters in the Caribbean Sea as a significant risk for piracy and armed robbery against ships; numerous vessels, including commercial shipping and pleasure craft, have been attacked and hijacked both at anchor and while underway; crews have been robbed and stores ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... given him when he killed the usurper Abdul Mubin in Bruni. In 1773 a small settlement was formed on the island of Balambangan, north of Bruni; and in the following year the Sultan of Bruni agreed to give this settlement a monopoly of the pepper trade in return for protection from piracy. In the next year, however, Balambangan was surprised and captured by the Sulus. It was reoccupied for a few months in 1803, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... assistance. The limits to the possible expansion of any one nation are established by certain fundamental and venerable political conditions. The penalties of persistent transgression would be not merely a sentence of piracy similar to that passed on Napoleon I, but a constantly diminishing national vitality on the part of the aggressor. As long as the national principle endures, political power cannot be exercised irresponsibly without becoming ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... little girl, to whom the fact of piracy was a sublimated sort of existence in which she had not considered it would be necessary to think ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... Piracy and smuggling had formed the historic past of all the villages that Ulysses was visiting, some huddled in the shelter of the promontory crowned with a lighthouse, others opening on the concavity of a bay dotted ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... its shores. Indeed, a short time before, the latter had even been forbidden to concern themselves about the pursuits of its inhabitants; since, though for centuries it had belonged to a family of seafaring folk who were suspected of piracy, it had received, two generations ago, from Alexander the Great himself, the right of asylum, because its owner, in those days, had commanded a little fleet which proved extremely useful to the conqueror of the world in the siege of Gaza and during the expedition to Egypt. True, under ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... What then? Will you make your "American Presbyterian," and your Presbyterian House, effect that great change in the religious literature of the land whereby the subject of slave-holding shall be approached precisely as you deal with "theft, highway-robbery, or piracy?" Will you, then, by act of Assembly, Synod, Presbytery, Session, deny your pulpits, and communion-bread and wine, to slave-holding ministers, elders, and members? Will you, then, tell New England, and especially little Rhoda, We have purified our skirts from the blood: forgive us, and take ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... "Luss" is after a fashion {Greek}; but the Greek word included piracy which was honourable, whenas the Arab. term is mostly applied to larcenists and similar blackguards. [I would read the word in the text "Balsata-hum," until I have ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... being few heroes in an army. We must fawn in society. What is the meaning of that dread of one example of tolerance? O my dear! let us give it the right name. Society is the best thing we have, but it is a crazy vessel worked by a crew that formerly practised piracy, and now, in expiation, professes piety, fearful of a discovered Omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves and captain. Their old habits are not quite abandoned, and their new one is used as a lash to whip the exposed of us for a propitiation of the capricious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... both professional and amateur, are reserved by Clyde Fitch. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this piece must be made to The Macmillan Company. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... the West Indies became smugglers, how by easy stages they passed from the profession of illicit dealing to piracy, are matters that concern history rather than legend. Their name of buccaneers comes from buccan, an Indian word signifying a smoke-house, in which beef and other meats were dried; as one of the earliest enterprises of the rovers was the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... These men found refuge in the mountain fastnesses and congregated for two reasons—one, so they could avoid capture, and the other so they could swoop down and "secure their own." Robbery and commerce came hand in hand, and piracy is almost as natural ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... pirates threaten and authorize piracy upon Northern commerce; and from the moment that threat is carried into execution, the fetters will fall from the manacled limbs of their slaves, and they will be encouraged and aided in the establishment of ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... appendage to a traveller's luggage in that Island; the few notes gathered from its pages and other guide-books will enable my readers to follow my narrative with greater interest; whilst I trust this open acknowledgment of my piracy ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Department with respect to the non-ratified treaty with Spain was not generally admitted in Europe, and that "he thought it equally dangerous and inconsistent with our general principles to assert that we had a right to seize a vessel for any cause short of piracy in a place where we did not previously claim jurisdiction." Mr. Gallatin succeeded in satisfying M. Pasquier that the seizure was not in violation of the law of nations or an insult to the French flag, and the captain having instituted a suit for redress against the seizing officers, the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... by these wretches reduced to the same condition Virgil was, when the centurion seized on his estate. But I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Maecenas of the present age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips: it helped him to a reputation which he neither desired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himself capable; but ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... began Mark Twain's long and active interest in copyright. Previously he had not much considered the subject; he had taken it for granted there was no step that he could take, while international piracy was a recognized institution. On both sides of the water books were appropriated, often without profit, sometimes even without credit, to the author. To tell the truth, Clemens had at first regarded it rather in the nature of a compliment that his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... KIDD: William Kidd, about whose early life nothing is positively known, was commissioned by the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1695 to put down piracy. With a good ship under him, however, he himself turned pirate. On his return he was arrested, sent to England, tried, and executed in London in 1701. Some of his buried treasure was recovered by the colonial authorities ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... however, a pretext for the comparison in the fact that the two sovereigns took a lively interest in each other's affairs. Moulay-Ismael sent several embassies to treat with Louis XIV on the eternal question of piracy and the ransom of Christian captives, and the two rulers were continually exchanging gifts ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... began by complaining of an act of piracy! After being exposed to a tempest and forced to put in for supplies, here he was captured, and called upon to distribute prizes! He perceived that it was a new act of aggression on the part of the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... well known that Laudonnire's followers were not altogether harmonious. Some restless spirits seceded, and seizing one of the colony's ships, entered successfully in the autumn and winter of 1564-65 into piracy on the rich commerce of Spain in the West Indies. These French spoliations had been a sore point with the owners of West India commerce since the days of Verrazano, so much so that the Spanish Government had instituted a fleet of coastguards among the islands to intercept and destroy the pirates. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... Ike," Jimmie McGraw exclaimed. "I feel in my bones that I'm going to love that mule! He's so worthless! If he had two legs less he'd beat Jesse James to the tall timber in piracy! He won't work if you don't watch him, and he'll steal everything he gets his eyes on! Yes, sir, I feel that there's a common sympathy between that mule and me, yet I know that we'll have a falling out some day! He's so open and above-board in ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... infringed the Parliamentary ordinance. No notice appears to have been taken until the election of a new Master of the Stationers' Company, about the middle of 1644. The Company had an interest in the enforcement of the ordinance, which was aimed at piracy as well as sedition and heresy; and whether for this reason, or at the instigation of Milton's adversaries, they (August 24th) petitioned Parliament to call him to account. The matter was referred to a committee, but more urgent business thrust it out of sight. Milton, nevertheless, had received ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... with gold and silver, worth about three pounds a yard, several dozens of China plates and basons, a Japan cabinet, and three hundred moidores in gold; ninety-six of which were afterwards found on Hately, when made prisoner by the Spaniards, when he had nearly been put to death for piracy on their account.][254] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... cases in which treasure lost by piracy or shipwreck has been recovered after a century or more. Some years ago a company of men from Boston made two cruises to the shoals of the Silver Key on the Bahama Banks, a spot noted for shipwrecks. They had some clue to a treasure-laden ship which had foundered there ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... powers of the new government will act on the States in their collective characters. In some instances, also, those of the existing government act immediately on individuals. In cases of capture; of piracy; of the post office; of coins, weights, and measures; of trade with the Indians; of claims under grants of land by different States; and, above all, in the case of trials by courts-marshal in the army and navy, by which death may be inflicted ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... "High-seas piracy, if you prefer," assented Kirkwood with entire equanimity. "I'm going to have the money, and you're going to give it up. The transaction by any name would smell no sweeter, Calendar. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... population of northern Africa has in past ages been addicted to piratical attacks on the shores of Europe opposite. Throughout the decline of the Roman empire, the barbarian invasions, the Mahommedan conquest and the middle ages, mere piracy always existed by the side of the great strife of peoples and religions. In the course of the 14th century, when the native Berber dynasties were in decadence, piracy became particularly flagrant. The town of Bougie was then the most notorious haunt of these "skimmers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... were, it stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts. Nature had manifold ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... plains, because the pesky redskins have long since ceased to need my strong right arm to quell them. I also have yielded up my ambition to be a sailor, or rather, that branch of the profession in which I hoped to specialize—piracy—because, for some regretful reason, piracy has lost much of its charm in these days of great liners. There is no treasure to search for any more, and the golden age of the splendid clipper ships, with their immense spread of canvas, has ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... since the old Northmen to engage in distant maritime adventure upon a grand scale. Nor was it strange that Portuguese seamanship should at first have thriven upon naval warfare with Mussulmans. It was in attempting to suppress the intolerable nuisance of Moorish piracy that Portuguese ships became accustomed to sail a little way down the west coast of Africa; and such voyages, begun for military purposes, were kept up in the interests of commerce, and presently served as a mighty stimulus to geographical curiosity. We ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... courted attack, seems never to have been fully rooted out from the little creeks and naval fastnesses of the Morea, and of some of the Egean islands. Not, perhaps, the mere spirit of wrong and aggression, but some old traditionary conceits and maxims, brought on the great crisis of piracy, which fell under no less terrors than of the triple thunders of the great allies.] Even in their quietest mood, these soldiers curbed Turkish tyranny; for, the captains and Christian primates of districts understanding each other, the former, by giving ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... said Mitchell, beaming, "and the Greens Committee will have to give up piracy and go ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Piracy, far from being, as at the present day, an act falling under the ban of the law, was not only encouraged in that barbarous or half-civilized society, but was celebrated in the songs of the Skalds, who reserved their most enthusiastic eulogies for celebrating ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... use the full influence of the United States to delegitimize terrorism and make clear that all acts of terrorism will be viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy, or genocide: behavior that no respectable government can condone or support and all must oppose. In short, with our friends and allies, we aim to establish a new international norm regarding terrorism requiring non-support, non-tolerance, and ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States
... the slave-trade." So eminent a man as William L. Yancey formally proposed in a Southern commercial convention, in 1858, that the South should demand the repeal of the laws "declaring the slave-trade to be piracy;" and Governor Adams of South Carolina pronounced those laws to be "a fraud upon the slave-holders of the South." The Governor of Mississippi went still farther, and exhibited a confidence in the scheme which ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... position in the ranks of gluttony. Surely the bovine was the "limit" in that basest of all passions. One cow held his attention more particularly than the others. She was small, and black and white, and her build suggested Brittany extraction. She ran a sort of free lance piracy all round the corral. Her sharp horns were busy whenever she saw a sister apparently enjoying herself too cordially. And in every case she drove the bigger beast out and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Welsh like a mixture of black and white. Coffin lace is formed of very light stamped metal, and is made of almost as many patterns as the ribbons of Coventry. All our designs are registered, as there is a constant piracy going on, which it is ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... originated first in conquest and war, piracy, or colonization: secondly, in purchase. There were two other and subordinate sources of the institution—the first was crime, the second poverty. If a free citizen committed a heinous offence, he could be degraded into a slave—if he were unable to pay his debts, the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to trace the remote origin of the American Rebellion will find the germ of the Union armies of 1861-5 in the cabin of the Mayflower, and the inception of the Secession forces between the decks of that Dutch slaver which planted the fruits of her avarice and piracy in the James River colonies ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... "If I haven't robbed that poor, innocent young man of a book he bought for himself! Attempted eviction by his room-mate, and bold highway robbery by an unknown woman! No, it's worse than that; it's piracy, for it happened on the high seas." And the girl laughed ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... rose-water piracy that the boy sang of; it was the genuine pirate of the Isle of Pines,—the gentleman who before the days of California and steamers was the terror of the Spanish Main. He was depicted as falling in deadly combat with a naval cruiser, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... about a book, we are told, changed his career. He borrowed a Psalter from Finnian of Moville, and made a copy of it, working secretly at night. Finnian heard of the piracy, and, as owner of the original, claimed the copy. Columba refused to let him have it. Then Diarmid, King of Meath, was asked to arbitrate. Arguing that as every calf belonged to its cow, so every copy of a book belonged to ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... of Grand Larceny and Piracy, involving the destruction of the Constitution and Declaration ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... probably no more extraordinary narrative of cruelty, courage, suffering, and barbaric luxury could be fabricated. Morgan was a Welshman, an emigrant, who, having worked out as a slave the cost of his passage across the ocean, took immediate advantage of his freedom to take up the trade of piracy. For him was no pillaging of paltry merchant-ships. He demanded grander operations, and his bands of desperadoes assumed the proportions of armies. Many were the towns that suffered from the bloody visitations of Morgan and his men. Puerto del Principe yielded up to them three hundred ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... ruled over the Baltic Sea very much as Venice ruled over the Adriatic. In spite of its monopolistic tendencies, so opposed to the spirit of free intercourse between nations, the league did much useful work by suppressing piracy and by encouraging the art of navigation. Modern Germans look back to it as proof that their country can play a great part on the seas. The Hanseatic merchants were also pioneers in the half-barbarous lands of northern and eastern Europe, where they founded towns, fostered industry, and introduced ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Algeria, founded by the Arabs in 935, called the "silver city," from the glistening white of its buildings as seen sloping up from the sea, presenting a striking appearance, was for centuries under its Bey the head-quarters of piracy in the Mediterranean, which only began to cease when Lord Exmouth bombarded the town and destroyed the fleet in the harbour. Since it fell into the hands of the French the city has been greatly improved, the fortifications strengthened, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of it kept them within bounds for years. Offenders banished from Egypt sought refuge with the turbulent kinglets, who were in a perpetual state of unrest between Sinai and the Dead Sea. Egyptian sailors used to set out to traffic along the seaboard, taking to piracy when hard pressed; Egyptian merchants were accustomed to penetrate by easy stages into the interior. The accounts they gave of their journeys were not reassuring. The traveller had first to face the solitudes which confronted him before reaching the Isthmus, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a member of the unlucky ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... conclusion of the war, not only ungenerous, but insolent and oppressive; and at the same time, the corsairs of the Barbary powers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean sea, whose princes were fattening upon the spoils of piracy, were marauding upon American merchant-vessels with impunity, and carrying the crews ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... and put through wheat corners and all that, and catch the poor people and take their money from them! Charity is love. But your idea of charity makes me pity you. Up here I find a man can pile up hundreds of millions by stifling competition, by debauching legislatures, by piracy and legalized theft, and then give a tenth of it to found a university, and so atone for his crimes. That is called charity. Oh, I know a lot about such things! I've been studying and thinking a great deal since I came to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... through the facilities which were given to inter-migration. Good roads connected the ends and dissected the width and breadth of the great Roman Empire. Travel was well protected. A well-drilled army suppressed highway robbery, and an excellent navy put down piracy. A resident of Gaul could with ease settle in Syria, while the Syrian, if he so desired, could find with ease a home in Gaul. The residents of Brittania and Greece could with comparative ease inter-migrate, and had not the floods of barbarians which deluged the Roman Empire put an end to civilization, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... began the study of Hebrew, having a mind to translate the Book of Job, a vision unfulfilled. In 1868 he thought of publishing his boyish piece, The Lover's Tale, but delayed. An anonymously edited piracy of this and other poems was perpetrated in 1875, limited, at least ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... on both sides gave rise to actions which bordered on sheer piracy, concerning which many a tale fell on my ear all along the Guinea coast. Thus one Frenchman I met had been in command of a Spanish slaver, which was lying becalmed. He victoriously repulsed the attacking boats of a British cruiser, and killed ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... so brave a seaman gradually rose to the rank of Commodore in the United States navy. He was the hero of many subsequent brilliant exploits, principally in foreign waters, and effectually showed the nations of Europe how to put an end to the piracy and insolence of the Barbary States, which had lasted for nearly three centuries. He was the recipient of many distinguished honors, and was presented with a sword by Congress for his share in the destruction of the "Philadelphia," and in 1812 with ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... thing have been made popular in England through the "Confessions of a Thug" by my late friend Meadows Taylor; and I may record my conviction that were the English driven out of India, "Thuggee," like piracy in Cutch and in the Persian Gulf, would revive at the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... would be monarch absolute! What proof has he ever given that he knows how to govern!" "One tenth of all goods acquired by trade or any other method," protested still another. "What other method has he in mind?—robbery, piracy, murder, forsooth? And then, when complaints of his 'other method' are made, he alone is to judge the case! A ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... intellectual glory and then load his ship with enslaved womanhood? Was not the scholar Columbus part pirate? What was in that atmosphere of the fifteenth century which could have given peculiar thoughts to Columbus alone? Was he alone in his piracy? It is much more certain that the chains that held the negro held also all womanhood. All old thought thus awaited the electric process that should weed ideas from crime. Our later years are active in disentangling thought from ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... a Roman province, B.C. 65—Privileges granted by Rome to the Phoenician cities—Phoenicia profits by the Roman suppression of piracy, but suffers from Parthian ravages—The Phoenicians offend Augustus and lose their favoured position, but recover it under later emperors— Mention of the Phoenician cities in the New Testament— Phoenicia accepts ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... The United States therefore refused to sign any agreement which would permit British naval officers to search American vessels in time of peace. In 1820 the United States declared the slave trade to be a form of piracy, and Great Britain advanced the view that as there was no doubt of the right of a naval officer to visit and search a ship suspected of piracy, her officers should be permitted to visit and search ships found off the ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... the childish Zola, life must have presented itself as a series of human documents. He saw things as they were, not as a small boy should see them. He could have had no genuine longings for a life of piracy, for he saw that the pirate, instead of being a gorgeously-dressed and nobly-chivalrous hero, was only a brutal ruffian travelling on the road to Execution Dock. Tin soldiers could have brought him no happiness, for he knew that they were only lifeless bits of tin, as incapable of fighting ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... think," said Senhouse. "Robin Goodfellow." He had recovered himself in that breathing-space. "How splendid of you both. Come and see my ship. I'm in moorings now, you know. I've cut piracy." ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... in Tringanu they make some of the best steel in the world—the natives, I mean. That's where those curly krisses and Malay daggers come from. But the piracy is all over. Tringanu isn't exactly civilized, I'll admit, but it's under British protection, like all the ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... gaiety of character that naturally endeared him to the young; and it was interesting to hear him lay out his projects for the future, when he should be returned to parliament, and place at the service of the nation his experience of marine affairs. I asked him if his notion of piracy upon a private yacht were not original. But he told me, no. "A yacht, Miss Valdevia," he observed, "is a chartered nuisance. Who smuggles? Who robs the salmon rivers of the west of Scotland? Who cruelly beats the keepers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against all maxims of policy as well as of justice; but the superior infamy of the second, aggravated by the disappointment of all the hopes entertained by good men from the triple alliance, and by the treacherous attempt at piracy with which it was commenced, seems to have effaced the impression of it, not only from the minds of men living at the time, but from most of the writers who have treated of this reign. The principle, however, of both was the same, and arbitrary power at home ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... was being waged for commerce, and with the experience of Spain in gathering the precious metals [12]from new found lands, every discovery of hitherto uncharted territory opened the possibility of wealth and an exchange of commodities, if rapine and piracy could not be practised. The merchant was an adventurer, and politics, quite as much as trade, controlled his movements; for the line between trader, buccaneer, and pirate faded away before conditions which made treaties of no importance ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... waters of the Styx. Manning the oars were a dozen evil-visaged ruffians, while in the stern of the approaching vessel there sat a grim-faced, weather-beaten spirit, armed to the teeth, his coat sleeves bearing the skull and cross-bones, the insignia of piracy. ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... charged with being careless of his works and indifferent to the piracy of his name; but we see by this Sonnet, No. 78, that the real author was not indifferent to the false use of his pseudonym, though it was, of course, impossible for him to take any effectual action if he desired to preserve his ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... knew nothing of the oyster industry, while his head was an encyclopaedia of facts concerning it. Also, within an hour or so, he was able to bring to us a Greek boy of seventeen or eighteen who knew thoroughly well the ins and outs of oyster piracy. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... German insolence openly and defiantly parading itself. The catalogue of provocations grew daily, and daily bred anger, but our temper held until in February of 1917, when Germany proclaimed unrestricted piracy by submarines, and under the thin pretext of starving out the British Isles, American and other ships were destroyed with ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... had been obliged to witness nineteen years before when a military tribune, were invited by him to return to their town and to rebuild it. Spain began again to experience more tolerable times. The suppression of piracy, which found dangerous lurking-places in the Baleares, through the occupation of these islands by Quintus Caecilius Metellus in 631, was singularly conducive, to the prosperity of Spanish commerce; and in other respects also the fertile islands, inhabited by a dense ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the ocean to plunder and slay the inhabitants for the purpose of colonizing the countries they had previously devastated, such was never the character of the Celts. They never engaged extensively in trade, or what is often synonymous, piracy. Before becoming christianized, the Celts of Ireland crossed over the narrow channel which divided them from Britain, and frequently carried home slaves; they also passed occasionally to Armorica, and their annals speak of warlike expeditions to that country; ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... Life is patriarchal, and, as regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the plague of Oriental society, does not exist. Women are held in high regard. Slavery is everywhere established. Side by side with piracy and constant war, and the supreme honor given to military prowess, there is a fine and bountiful hospitality which is held to be a religious duty. In the Homeric poems, there is often exhibited a noble refinement of thought and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... event; and if I may give my opinion, they seemed to be under a blast from Heaven; for if we will not allow a visible curse to pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the events of things with divine justice? It was certainly an apparent vengeance on their crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the state they were in; and as they shewed not the least remorse for the crime, but added new villanies to it, such as particularly that piece of monstrous cruelty of wounding a poor slave because he did not, or perhaps could not understand to do what ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... hunting is robbery with violence. We all remember our boyhood's fascination for piracy, smuggling, and the profession of Dick Turpin; and to the Theban peasant, who is essentially youthful in his ideas, this form of fortune hunting has irresistible attractions. When a new tomb is discovered by ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... say with perjured lips, "We fight to make the ocean free"? You, whose black trail of butchered ships Bestrews the bed of every sea Where German submarines have wrought Their horrors! Have you never thought,— What you call freedom, men call piracy! ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... coast, and right away down to Elema as far as Bald Head, the Motu tribe has a wonderful influence, and in a few years excellent pioneers may be had from it. They must have been a terrible lot in the past. I have heard much from themselves of piracy, murder, and robbery, and all along here they tell terrible tales. A Motu chief in one of our meetings, speaking of the past and the present, concluded by saying: "Since the arrival of the foreigners (teachers), we have changed and ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... martyr, one that for his good behaviour hath paid the excise of his ears, so suffered captivity by the land-piracy of ship-money; next a primitive freeholder, one that hates the king because he is a gentleman transgressing the Magna Charta of delving Adam. Add to these a mortified bankrupt that helps out his false weights with some scruples ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do with any race less diffident than authors, they would have won a repute for unselfishness that they do not now enjoy. It is certain that in the long period when we flew the black flag of piracy there were many among our corsairs on the high seas of literature who paid a fair price for the stranger craft they seized; still oftener they removed the cargo, and released their capture with several ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... at the very outset of this Preface that the pages which follow do not pretend to be a history of piracy, but are simply an attempt to gather together, from various sources, particulars of those redoubtable pirates and buccaneers whose names have been handed down to us in a ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... had welcomed being turned adrift in an open boat; whereat, the consul, deploring the absence of man-of-war or steamer to send in pursuit, took their individual affidavits; and these he sent to San Francisco, from which point the account of the crime, described as piracy, spread to ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... three in four escape capture, so that his adventures pay him handsomely. Having, as I said, grown honest, he deals at present exclusively in blacks, but he is known to have committed not a few acts of piracy in his younger days, and the deaths of two or three British officers, and the crews of several merchantmen, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... and pass by almost as safely the argument which some have drawn from a chance expression of his in his pathetic letter to Lady Raleigh, in which he 'hopes that God would send him somewhat before his return.' To prove an intention of piracy in the despairing words of a ruined man writing to comfort a ruined wife for the loss of her first-born is surely to deal out hard measure. Heaven have mercy upon us, if all the hasty words which ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... absolute as though stamped with the dollar mark. Newspapers all over the State were pressed into service. These, bought up by Heinzman and his prospective partners in a lucrative business, spoke virtuously of private piracy of what are now called public utilities, the exploiting of the people's natural wealths, and all the rest of a specious reasoning the more convincing in that it was in many other cases only too true. The independent journals, uninformed of the rights of the case, either remained silent on the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... hypocrisy and a life of repression, with "thou shalt not" set on a hair-trigger, have made more than one man bold, genuine and honest. Draw the bow far enough this way, and your arrow will go a long way that. Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself, and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life. In the Spanish Court, Velasquez found life a lie, public manners an exaggeration, etiquette a pretense, and all the emotions put up in sealed cans. Fashionable Society is usually nothing but Canned Life. Look out for explosions! Velasquez held the balance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... as commander of a ship—and especially a ship of war—must know that in thus violating national and maritime laws you, and all on board this ship, are guilty of an act of piracy. This is not even piracy on the high seas. You are not merely within territorial waters, but you have invaded a national port. As you refuse to disclose the nationality of your ship, I accept, as you seem to do, your ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... whether you're one now or not," said Frank, "but you stand in a fair way of becoming one. I have no hankering for piracy." ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... 17, of intention to issue letters of marque, was met two days later by President Lincoln's counter-proclamation instituting a blockade of the Southern ports, and declaring that privateers would be held amenable to the laws against piracy. His first call for seventy-five thousand three months' militia was dictated as to numbers by the sudden emergency, and as to form and term of service by the provisions of the Act of 1795. It needed only a few days to show that this form of enlistment was both cumbrous and inadequate; ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... The work was at first carried on with great secrecy, lest other makers should copy the art; and the precaution was taken of stopping the keyhole of the workshop-door while the casting was in progress. To secure himself against piracy, he proceeded to take out a patent for the process in the year 1708, and it was granted for the term of fourteen years. The recital of the patent is curious, as showing the backward state of English iron-founding ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... wondered what had become of her. He glanced round. . . . Ah, there she was, not far from her father, over in front of the guard-house, selling, at a little counter with a canopy of yellow silk (brought by her father from that distant land called Piracy), mogues of hot soupe a la graisse, simnels, curds, coffee, and Jersey wonders, which last she made on the spot by dipping the little rings of dough in a bashin of lard on a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... news and bad news." And the master of the Adrienne thereupon launched into a tale of piracy and treachery such, as I never had heard before. Leaning over the taffrail, his elbows out-thrust and his big hands folded, he roared the story at us in a great booming voice that at times seemed to drown the words in its own volume. Now, as the waves and the wind snatched it away, it grew ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... recovered the craft, pulled across, and made the faithful vessel fast to her proper moorings. Edward was anxious to wait and exchange courtesies and compliments with the disappointed farmer, when he should confront us on the opposite bank; but wiser counsels prevailed. It was possible that the piracy was not yet laid at our particular door: Ulysses, I reminded him, had reason to regret a similar act of bravado, and—were he here—would certainly advise a timely retreat. Edward held but a low opinion of me as a counsellor; but he had a very solid ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... the Indians when to advocate their cause was to displease many. He was one of the earliest opponents of the slave-trade and slavery. He omitted no opportunity to protest against war and its iniquity, and he branded as piracy the custom of privateering, however sanctioned by international usages. As a statesman and philosopher his name is imperishable. As an active benefactor of his race, he is entitled to its lasting gratitude. As one of the ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... quarrelled with his uncle Brightric, Edric's brother, and before the arrival of Canute, had betaken himself to the piracy of a sea chief, seduced twenty of the king's ships, plundered the southern coasts, burnt the royal navy, and then his history disappears from the chronicles; but immediately afterwards the great Danish army, called Thurkell's Host, invaded the coast, and kept their chief ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... countenance this unlawful enterprise, whose headquarters were in Rio Medio, he was not the man for me. Though it was big enough to be made, by the papers at home, of political importance, it was, after all, neither more nor less than piracy. The idea of my turning a sort of Irish traitor was so extravagantly outrageous that now I could smile at the imbecility of that fellow O'Brien. As to turning into a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer |
