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Plunder   /plˈəndər/   Listen
Plunder

verb
(past & past part. plundered; pres. part. plundering)
1.
Take illegally; of intellectual property.  Synonym: loot.
2.
Plunder (a town) after capture.  Synonym: sack.
3.
Steal goods; take as spoils.  Synonyms: despoil, foray, loot, pillage, ransack, reave, rifle, strip.
4.
Destroy and strip of its possession.  Synonyms: despoil, rape, spoil, violate.



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"Plunder" Quotes from Famous Books



... part, proportion, or dividend. Tip me my quota; give me part of the winnings, booty, or plunder. CANT. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... Tyre,[14178] and Accho, famous as Acre in later times, had risen in revolt against their Assyrian governors, refused their tribute, and asserted independence.[14179] He at once besieged, and soon captured, Hosah. The leaders of the rebellion he put to death; the plunder of the town, including the images of its gods, and the bulk of its population, he carried off into Assyria. The people of Accho, he says, he "quieted." It is a common practice of conquerors "to make a solitude and call it peace." Asshur-bani-pal appears ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... near five o'clock before the final rout of the French took place; but, before that time, several hundreds of the Canadians and Indians had left the scene of action, and had returned to the scene of the fight in the wood, to plunder and scalp the dead. They were resting, after their bloody work, by a pool in the forest, when a scouting party from Fort Lyman, under Captains M'Ginnis and Folsom, came upon ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... "Petticoatism and plunder," was Artemus's reply—and that comprehended his whole philosophy of Mormonism. As he remarked elsewhere: "Brigham Young is a man of great natural ability. If you ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... built their own huts. But pastoral idleness displeased them, and, from tending their flocks, they betook themselves to the chase. Then, no longer content with hunting wild beasts, they turned their strength against the robbers of their country, whom they often stripped of their plunder, and divided it among the shepherds. 11. The youths who continually joined them so increased in number, as to enable them to hold assemblies, and celebrate games. In one of their excursions, the two brothers were surprised. Re'mus was taken prisoner, carried before the king, and accused ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is preached as gospel and enacted as law. It is thought good political economy for a strong people to devour the weak nations; for "Christian" England and America to plunder the "heathen" and annex their land; for a strong class to oppress and ruin the feeble class; for the capitalists of England to pauperize the poor white laborer; for the capitalists of America to enslave the poorer black laborer; for a strong man to oppress the weak men; for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... violent measures to secure the envied morceaux, that some destruction of finery took place where there was none to spare; and, at last, seniority was agreed upon to decide the question; so that when Nance had the first plunder of the chest which held all their clothes in common, and Biddy made the second grab, poor Kitty had little left but her ordinary rags to appear in. But as, in the famous judgment on Ida's Mount, it is hinted that Venus ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... towards Charing Cross, when he was "attacked by VERTIGO" in broad day-light! Comment is needless. If dangerous foreign bandits like this VERTIGO—who from his name must be an Italian—are permitted to plunder innocent pedestrians with impunity, the sooner we abolish our Police Force and save the expense, the better. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... and undaunted, he defended his house till the assailants set it in flames, and then yielded with reluctance to his kinsman, Buccleuch. But the time, which he had gained, effectually served his cause. The borderers had dispersed to plunder the stables of the nobility; the infantry thronged tumultuously together on the main street, when the Earl of Mar, issuing from the castle, placed one or two small pieces of ordnance in his own half-built house[24], ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... of supply were abandoned from necessity. The large armies which invaded Belgium and Germany lived sometimes in the houses of the people, sometimes by requisitions laid upon the country, and often by plunder and pillage. To subsist an army on the granaries of Belgium, Italy, Swabia, and the rich banks of the Rhine and Danube, is easy,—particularly if it marches in a number of columns and does not exceed ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... them. Great numbers of manuscripts have also been destroyed in this kingdom (Great Britain) by its invaders, the Pagan Danes, and the Normans, by the civil commotions raised by the barons, by the bloody contests between the houses of York and Lancaster, and especially by the general plunder and devastations of monasteries and religious houses in the reign of Henry the Eighth; by the ravages committed in the civil war in the time of Charles the First, and by the fire that happened in the Cottonian library, ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... bears the name o' Scot, But feels his heart's bluid rising hot, To see his poor auld mither's pot Thus dung in staves, An' plunder'd o' her hindmost groat By ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... arrear—those, that is to say, who were in the poorest circumstances—and a Bill introduced by Parnell in 1882 to wipe out these arrears by a grant of public money, was thrown out, being denounced by Lord Salisbury as a dangerous precedent of public plunder ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... to quit this truly hospitable place early in the morning; but during the night, some people who had probably too much money, imagined the Moors had taken us to their camp to plunder us. They communicated their fears to others, and pretending that the Moors, who walked up and down among their flocks, and cried from time to time, to keep away the ferocious beasts, had already given the signal for pursuing and murdering ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... plunder!" said Alwa, showing a double row of wonderful white teeth. The other four grinned like his reflections. "Ay, there will be plunder—for the priests! And we Rajputs will have new masters over us! Now, as things are, we have honorable men. They are fools, for any man is a fool who will not see ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... the municipal authorities, and was not put down till we had lost many men, including several officers, killed or wounded, and had punished the miscreants. Their objects were to gratify national hatred, and in the general alarm and confusion, to plunder the wealthy inhabitants, particularly the deserted houses. But families are now generally returning; business of every kind has been resumed, and the city is already tranquil and cheerful, under the admirable conduct (with exceptions very few and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... jewels of Persia mentioned in these changes of royal rule have, by inexplicable good fortune, been preserved from plunder while in the hands of rebels. The Crown jewels are in great part a portion of the splendid spoil which Nadir Shah obtained in the sack of Delhi, when it was the capital of the richest empire in the East. On his assassination near Meshed, the treasury was seized by the troops, and while a considerable ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... continued the elk, "that we are thieves, and that we came into this garden to plunder. Consider what an enormous quantity of beets, lettuces, parsley, and radishes we have eaten, and what a fine bed of spinach we are spoiling! 'Nothing can be more disgusting than a bird that sings out of season' is a proverb which is as current among the sons of wisdom as a bill ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... were seized and sold into slavery in the markets of Algiers and Tripoli. One reason for the long survival of this villainy was the low state of humanity among European nations. An Englishman's sympathy was but feebly aroused by the plunder of Frenchmen, and the bigoted Spaniard looked on with approval so long as it was Protestants that were kidnapped and bastinadoed. In 1783 Lord Sheffield published a pamphlet on the commerce of the United States, in which he shamelessly declared that the Barbary pirates were really useful to ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... glaciers moved down their valleys they carried, imprisoned in their bodies and heaped upon their backs and sides, the plunder from their wreckage of the range. This they heaped as large moraines in the broad valleys. The moraines of the Rocky Mountain National Park are unequalled, in my observation, for number, size, and story-telling ability. They are conspicuous ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... love. His violent death also appears to have been due to a love-adventure with a man. The murderer was a cook, a wholly uncultivated man, a criminal who had already been condemned to death, and shortly before murdering Winkelmann for the sake of plunder he was found to be on very intimate terms with him.[67] It is noteworthy that sexual inversion should so often be found associated with the study of antiquity. It must not, however, be too hastily concluded that this is due to suggestion ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... driven our clerics out— Why they, your friends, those ruffians, the De Brocs, They stood on Dover beach to murder me, They slew my stags in mine own manor here, Mutilated, poor brute, my sumpter-mule, Plunder'd the vessel full of Gascon wine, The old King's present, carried off the casks, Kill'd half the crew, dungeon'd the ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... worry about your wife for the present," Sartoris went on. "So long as she is your wife you come in for your share of the plunder when the division takes place. Nor need you let her know that you married her for her fortune, and not for her pretty face. People will be surprised to discover what a rich man Sir ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... lord, three sorts of persons with whom I am resolved never to dispute: A highwayman with a pistol at my breast, a troop of dragoons who come to plunder my house, and a man of the law who can make a merit of accusing me. In each of these cases, which are almost the same, the best method is to keep out of the way, and the next best is to deliver your money, surrender your ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... of Dupont was spared "long enough," not only for him to take an active part in the expedition which Charles V. sent against Tunis at his suggestion, to reinstate Muley Hassan on the throne of that kingdom, but also to see his knights return to the convent covered with glory, and galleys laden with plunder. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... look as indifferent as possible, the black would have observed me trembling, had he not been watching to see what his friends were about, no doubt eager to obtain his share of the plunder. The work the pirates were engaged in went on for some time, till even they had tolerably satiated their eagerness for booty; and then I fully expected to see them either heave my shipmates overboard as food for the ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... hostilities they should hold him responsible and waste his lands. Sir Ronald visited the band in Clydesdale forest, and rather than harm should come upon him, Wallace and his friends agreed to a truce for two months. Their plunder was stowed away in places of safety, and a portion of the band being left to guard it the rest ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... molest him; and dispose of them to others; upon which it fell out, that for the space of a Year complete, there was no sowing or planting: And when they wanted Bread, the Spaniards did by force plunder the Indians of the whole stock of Corn that they had laid up for the support of their Families, and by these indirect Courses above Thirty Thousand perished with Hunger. Nay it fortun'd at one time, that a Woman opprest with insufferable Hunger, depriv'd her own Son ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... thou canst hinder thy soldiers from plunder? And if thou do not, my life is forfeit. Thou knowest that I risk it with joy on the battlefield, but I care not to die a shameful ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... powerful, was the morality of the dollar. My father, my family, my husband, were willing to condone what they believed was my adultery. And for what? For a few scraps of paper that to them represented only the privilege to plunder, the privilege ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London

... it will have been a very great shock to you. I hope your brother will write you all the particulars; for my part, you can't expect I should enter into the details of it. His enemies pay him the compliment of saying, they do believe now that he did not plunder the public,, as he was accused (as they accused him) of doing, he having died in such circumstances." If he had no proofs of his honesty but this, I don't think this would be such indisputable authority: not having ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the Spanish Main. There were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless, no less insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... out there?' 'Yes,' said I, and forthwith handed him the famous Report for publication, if he thought fit. He glanced through it hurriedly, mumbling all the time, judged 'it would do,' and took himself off with this plunder. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... single employer. The bourgeoisie deplores all this, it is true, and has good reason to do so; for, under the old conditions, the bourgeois was comparatively secure against a revolt on the part of his hands. He could tyrannise over them and plunder them to his heart's content, and yet receive obedience, gratitude, and assent from these stupid people by bestowing a trifle of patronising friendliness which cost him nothing, and perhaps some paltry present, all apparently out of pure, self-sacrificing, uncalled-for goodness ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... business, and I've done all that I said I would. From now on, I'm a free agent. I want to advise you to put that stuff in a safe place. I'll give you two days' start. After that, if I can get 'em away from you, or whoever may have them, I'm going to do it. They will be fair plunder from then on. Notwithstanding the fact that I put them in your hands to-night,—and so wash my own of them temporarily,—I haven't a single scruple about relieving you of them on some later occasion. I may have to crack you over the head to do it,—so a word to the wise ought to be sufficient. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... to law, could not be drawn until September, 1807. This was the beginning of the fatal practice destined in the end to enervate France and demoralize the army. There was already little patriotism among the men, except what served as a pretext for plunder; the homogeneity of purpose, principle, nationality, and age was soon ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... the artillery, and plunder, being all embarked on the 28th, at daybreak on the 29th we took the direction of St. Benedict's, where we arrived, without any adventure, at a late hour in the evening. Here we again occupied the ground of which we had ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... not all caviare. I was very depressed, and must admit a few tears, as the whole force of what I had undertaken presented itself vividly to my mind. What if I met with an accident? What if I were taken ill? Suppose someone put in at night and cut my throat for the sake of plunder? Who would help me? Who would know of my position? Might I not die any one of a hundred deaths without the fact being known for weeks, perhaps months? What did this idiotic idea of mine amount to after all? Where was the pleasure? Would it not ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... other nationalities were doing their best to create ill-will between Great Britain and the United States. The idea of organising, as the members of other nationalities have organised, for the mere purpose of sharing in the party plunder, has, I believe, never been seriously contemplated by any Englishmen in America; though there are many communities in which their vote might well give them the balance of power. It would, as a rule, be easier to pick out—say, in Chicago—a ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... didn't guess that if a man DON'T learn to fit himself in, when he gets set down in such a land as this, he's a goner; any more'n they knew that most o' those who hold out here—all of 'em at any rate who've climbed the ladder, nabbed the plunder—have found no more difficulty in changin' their spots than they have their trousers. Yes, doctor, there's only one breed that flourishes, and you don't need me to tell you which it is. Here they lie"—and he nodded to right and left of him—"dreamin' ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... and political and legal, filched with light fingers from the pockets of the crowd, saw the crowd looking up to these trainers and employers of pickpockets, hailing them "captains of industry"! They reaped only where and what others had sown; they touched industry only to plunder and to blight it; they organized it only that its profits might go to those who did not toil and who despised those who did. "Have I gone mad in the midst of sane men?" I asked myself. "Or have I been mad, and have I suddenly become sane ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... influencing and corrupting members. He forgets the party caucus, at which the individual member is swamped in the majority; the "strikers," members employing their powers in blackmail; the Black Horse Cavalry, a combination of members in state legislatures formed to enrich themselves by plunder through passing or killing bills. He forgets the scandalous jobs put through to reward political workers; the long lists of doubtful or vicious bills reviewed in the press after each session of every ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... turned on the lights. It was Warrington's letter of credit. She gave a low laugh, perhaps a bit hysterical. There was no doubt of it. Some one had entered his room. There had been a struggle in which he had been the stronger, and the thief had dropped his plunder. (As a matter of fact, the Chinaman, finding himself closed in upon, had thrown the letter of credit toward the railing, in hope that it would fall over to the ground below, where, later, he could recover it.) Elsa pressed it to her heart as another woman might ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... rest of their party coming up, but he soon began to wonder how it was that they were so scattered. Then he heard one scream, and then it struck him all at once that this was a dodge of the blacks to draw the men from the camp, and, when they were abroad, cut them off one by one, plunder the drays, and drive off ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... his bargain—that was his decision. But he would not take his share of the plunder, except just enough to pay Mrs. Stedman. And he would never be ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... went in pursuit of the wounded mother bear, and was left behind by the relief party. We spoke long and earnestly of our experience in the mountains, and he wished me to deny the statement frequently made that, "Clark carried a pack of plunder and a heavy shotgun from Donner's Camp and left a child there to die." This I can do positively, for when the Third Relief Party took Simon Murphy and us "three little Donner girls" from the mountain camp, not a living being remained, except Mrs. Murphy and Keseberg at the lake ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... his kingdom, but do his utmost to defend it. Then King Don Sancho entered Leon, slaying and laying waste before him, as an army of infidels would have done; and King Don Alfonso sent to him to bid him cease from this, for it was inhuman work to kill and plunder the innocent: and he defied him to a pitched battle, saying that to whichsoever God should give the victory, to him also would he give the kingdom of Leon: and the King of Castille accepted the defiance, and a day was fixed for ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... brigades. Major Steele was a most resolute, vigilant, energetic officer, and yet he found it impossible to stop a practice which neither company nor regimental officers were able to aid him in suppressing. This disposition for wholesale plunder exceeded any thing that any of us had ever seen before. The men seemed actuated by a desire to "pay off" in the "enemy's country" all scores that the Federal army had chalked up in the South. The great cause for apprehension, which our situation might have inspired, seemed only to ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... another surging sea climbed aboard and picked up more of the laths and more of the shingles, and frolicked away into the night with the plunder. Captain Candage's sense of thrift got a more vital jab than did his sense of fear. His eyes were on his wheel, and he had not seen the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... their guilt, they will always contrive to blame the world in general and society in particular. It is almost amusing to hear a desperate thief, who seems no more able to prevent himself from rushing on plunder than a greyhound can prevent itself from rushing on a hare, complaining that employers will not trust him. It is useless to say, "What can you expect?" The scoundrel persists in crying out against a hard world which drove him to be ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... moved slowly, and despite the legate's commands, never followed up a victory. It mattered little to us that his enemies lived to fight another day; our business was to line our pockets with plunder. It was no serious affair to defeat our opponents whenever we met. They were untrained in war and were usually officered by mercenaries, who cared little whether they ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... other warehouses and storehouses along the river, and a few houses, but the men had worked so quietly, most of the time entering by way of the river that no one knew of their being around. There was considerable plunder in the house at this time, and Dick meant to find owners for it if possible, and if not, to offer it at public sale and use the money thus obtained to further the cause of independence. Pike was greatly chagrined at being forced to show ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore

... quite satisfied to spend another night at the mill, for the rain was coming down faster than ever. What he had told the boys about the loneliness and security of the place was no idle boast, else he would have made haste to leave the locality with his plunder. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so continuously, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... women or looting of valuables. [Nota bene: this was in 207 B.C., and may well cause us to blush for the Christian armies that entered Peking in 1900 A.D.] Thus he won the hearts of all. In the present passage, then, I think that the true reading must be, not 'plunder,' but 'do not plunder.'" Alas, I fear that in this instance the worthy commentator's feelings outran his judgment. Tu Mu, at least, has no such illusions. He says: "When encamped on 'serious ground,' there being no inducement as yet to advance ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... of the Pope, took up arms. Twice they repulsed the vice-legate's forces, driving them back to the walls of Avignon and Cavaillon. Flushed with success, they began to preach openly, to overturn altars, and to plunder churches. The Pope, therefore, Dec., 1543, called on Count De Grignan for assistance in exterminating the rebels. But the incidents here told conflict with the undeniable facts of Cardinal Sadolet's intercession ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the country around us was open, and with these advantages, the nature of our position was so different that I could OCCUPY the country, divide my party, visit the camp of Mr. Finch, and recover what we could from that scene of plunder. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... near my habitation by my own hands; but one of them having multiplied by I know not what kind of creature, these were two which I preserved tame, whereas the rest ran wild into the woods, and became indeed troublesome to me at last; for they would often come into my house, and plunder me too, till at last I was obliged to shoot them, and did kill a great many: at length they left me. With this attendance, and in this plentiful manner, I lived; neither could I be said to want any thing but society, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... to hear that its influence shall be availing to me," said the Knight; "for I have heard that the road is infested with robber-tribes, who regard nothing in comparison of an opportunity of plunder." ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... A heavy and dangerous 'cobbling' sea. One marvels how such boats could live in it. Is it called a feat of desperate daring when one man and a dog cross the Atlantic in a boat the size of a long-boat, and indeed it is; but this long-boat was overloaded with men and other plunder, and was only three feet deep. 'We naturally thought often of all at home, and were glad to remember that it was Sacrament Sunday, and that prayers would go up from our friends for us, although they know ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... throne (871) the Danes, or Northmen, as they were often called, were sweeping down upon the country. A few months before he became King, he had aided his brother in a desperate struggle with them. In the beginning, the object of the Danes was to plunder, later, to possess, and finally, to rule over the country. They had already overrun a large portion of England and had invaded Wessex or the country of the West Saxons. (See map facing p. 30.) Wherever their raven flag appeared, destruction ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... have harmed an old man. They were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed to have little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd started—well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder, and they took it. I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did some woeful, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... object of much concern. But there was reason to fear that the example, should those who set it be permitted to escape with impunity, would be extensively followed, and it was reported to be the intention of the deserters to plunder convoys of provisions which were advancing at some distance in the rear. To prevent mischiefs of so serious a nature the general detached Major Hamtranck with the first regiment in pursuit of the deserters, and directed him to secure the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... to look back to see if they were followed, but riding forward at a walk towards where the narrow street opened into a wider part, upon reaching which they saw upon their left a party of ten or a dozen more of the dark horsemen riding slowly along as if in search of plunder, for several had various objects thrown across their saddlebows, which looked like spoil, and their wandering looks at once turned to the ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... 'there is something hidden in all this. This is not an ordinary desert foray. You are known, and this tribe comes from a distance to plunder you;' and then he rapidly detailed what ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... straight and bowing. The bow impressed, not to say awed, the native bird. He stood staring blankly, till the new-comer proclaimed his errand by dropping into the bushes, helping himself to a berry, and returning to the fence to dispose of his plunder. This was too much; the outraged redbreast dashed suddenly over the head of the impertinent visitor, almost touching it as he passed. The woodpecker kept his ground in spite of this demonstration, and I learned how a bird accustomed to rest, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... were, they were at any rate the slow and painful working up towards a higher civilization; the country became consolidated under the most powerful chief; in time peace was enforced, agriculture improved, and towns grew up. The tribal raids of Celtic Ireland, however, were merely for plunder and destruction. From such conflicts no higher state of society could possibly be evolved. The Irish Celts built no cities, promoted no agriculture, and never coalesced so as to form even the nucleus ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... stirring part of the lower orders having got government and the distribution of plunder into their hands, they will use its resources in each municipality to form a body of adherents. These rulers and their adherents will be strong enough to overpower the discontents of those who have not been able to assert their share of the spoil. The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating lottery ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... ragamuffins enlisted by Creen Brush, commissioned by General Howe to organize a battalion of Tories. Through the day the British regiments were sullenly taking their departure. Pompey informed Ruth that the vagabonds had begun to plunder the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... anything but angels," he added. "In dealing with them, it is well to have a good show of muskets, or a big gun or two showing its muzzle: makes 'em more civil. Cases have been where they've boarded a scantily-manned vessel; to get the plunder, you see. Hungry for anything of the axe or ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... here! to share with us at least the same fears, instead of the division of apprehension we must now mutually be tormented with. I own I am sometimes affrighted enough. These sanguine and sanguinary wretches will risk all for the smallest hope of plunder ; and Barras assures them they have only to enter England to be lords ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... Sardesus, who, of all the party had not as yet touched the dicebox. 'Let this be enough. Will you plunder him entirely? Have you no regard for my rights over him? Do you not know that to-morrow, at the amphitheatre, Sergius and I are to match gladiators against each other for a heavy wager, and that I expect to win? How, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... wished, however, to bestow on him a pension of three thousand pounds a year. This he refused, with the remark, 'I am glad your Majesty is satisfied I have done my duty. But if I cannot have the honour to serve my country, I will not plunder it.' He remained out of office during the remainder of Anne's reign, but on the accession of George I. to the throne he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. This post, however, was by no means agreeable to him, for he regarded it as a kind of banishment, and during ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... consequences. It has called the attention of the world outside of Germany to some amazing doctrines proclaimed there, which strike at the root of all international morality as well as of all international law, and which threaten a return to primitive savagery, when every tribe was wont to plunder ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... to put some capital into it—and I tell you, my boy, I could do worse, I could do a deal worse. No, now, let that luggage alone; I'll fix that. Here, Jerry, got anything to do? All right-shoulder this plunder and follow me. Come along, Washington. Lord I'm glad to see you! Wife and the children are just perishing to look at you. Bless you, they won't know you, you've grown so. Folks all well, I suppose? That's good—glad ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... not exist that can quarrel with equity, and treat her as the offspring of fraud—-The most amiable character in the creation, and the immediate representative of supreme excellence. She will be revered, even by the sons of plunder! ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... flogged the horses, and galloped with much noise and clatter over the log embankment. This was heard by his fellows in Strellin and Dammbecke (two villages which are about three-fourths on the way), who held themselves ready to unyoke the horses and to plunder the travellers when they came up with them. That after the dead man was buried he could play the ghost more easily still, &c. That this was the whole truth, and that he himself had never in his life robbed, still less murdered, any one; wherefore he begged to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... quarrel between the two sheiks, of which he was himself the cause; that the camp was not a unity consisting of a single chief, his family, and following; but that there were too separate leaders, each with his adherents, perhaps temporarily associated together for purposes of plunder. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... veracity is engraven in his own soul. Do you not remember, you spotless one, how you used to steal and lie and cheat and rob? Oh, not with your own hand, of course! It was your remote ancestor who lived by plunder, and was honored for the blood upon his hairy hands. By and by he discovered that cunning was more effective than violence, and less troublesome. Still later he became convinced that the greatest cunning was virtue, and made him a moral code, and subdued the world. Then, when you ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... under his arm the piece of plate, wrapped up in red baize, the other two gave an eye to its safety; for such was then the state of the police of the metropolis, that men were often assaulted in the public street for the sake of revenge or of plunder; and those who apprehended being beset, usually endeavoured, if their estate admitted such expense, to secure themselves by the attendance of armed followers. And this custom, which was at first limited to the nobility and gentry, extended by degrees to those citizens of consideration, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... closer, leaving the place of honor to the right of the gleeman to the free-handed new-comer. He had thrown off his steel cap and his brigandine, and had placed them with his sword, his quiver and his painted long-bow, on the top of his varied heap of plunder in the corner. Now, with his thick and somewhat bowed legs stretched in front of the blaze, his green jerkin thrown open, and a great quart pot held in his corded fist, he looked the picture of comfort and of good-fellowship. His hard-set face had softened, and the thick crop ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the fact that the more energetic spirits, on whom alone the hopes of permanent settlement could depend, found a readier avenue to wealth and a more tempting sphere for the exercise of manly qualities in the attractions of a campaign that seemed to promise plunder and glory, especially when these prizes were accompanied by no exorbitant amount of suffering or toil. Thus when it had become known that Scipio Africanus would accompany his brother in the expedition against Antiochus, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... had taken possession of some rocks, at no great distance from where the crew of the Alceste were encamped, and here they deposited the plunder they had taken from the wreck. It now became necessary for Captain Maxwell to prepare against an attack. With a very small stock of provisions, which, even if husbanded with the greatest care, could ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... herself in a sort of wilderness which she had appropriated, and where she played at all sorts of solitary games. In that wilderness she imagined herself at times a lonely traveler, at other times a merchant carrying goodly pearls, at other times a bandit engaged in feats of plunder. All possible scenes in history or imagination that she understood did the child try to enact in the wilderness. But she went there now with no intention of posing in any imaginary part. She went there because her ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... attempt, but the West Saxons met it in full force. The ealdorman Wulfheard gathered together the levy of fighting men, attacked the host, and put it to flight with great slaughter. Shortly after a second Danish host landed near Portland, doubtless to plunder Dorchester: and the local ealdorman AEthelhelm, falling upon them with the levy of Dorset men, was defeated after a sharp struggle, leaving the heathen in possession of the field. It was not in Wessex, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... of bread, bacon, and cheese for a breakfast and distributing a packed bag to each soldier. The attack at daylight resulted in one death to our command and a number to the Indians. It was followed up, and a few days later the band was almost annihilated. The plunder recovered proved them guilty of many late attacks. This was toward the end of the Indian war that had for so many years been disastrous to the community, and which in many of its aspects was deeply pathetic. Originally the Indian population was large. ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... then you have your answer, you that thought To find our London unawakened still, A sleeping plunder for you, thought to fill The gorge of private greed, and count for naught The common good. Time unto her has brought Her glorious hour, her strength of public will Grown conscious, and a civic soul to thrill The once dull mass that for ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... Malden, with English and Indians, preparing to plunder the frontier and kill some more women and children as soon as they felt rested up. At the news of Perry's victory, Harrison decided to go over and stir them up. Arriving at Malden, he found it deserted, and followed the foe to ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... the thirteenth or fourteenth century, from their roving habits as well perhaps as from their remoteness, were among the last peoples of Europe to abandon their old creed. Urged by poverty and the hopes of plunder, the pirates of the Baltic long continued to be the terror of the European coasts; but, without a political status, they were the common outlaws of Christendom. They were the relics of a savage life now giving way in Europe to the somewhat more civilised ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... horde,—who kept falling in at various distances upon the first and second day's march. From sixty to eighty thousand of those who 20 were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of the tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more violent than prudence justified or the amiable character of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this, as in other instances, he was completely overruled by the 25 malignant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... attended by their slaves, and accompanied by several other travellers, made up such a considerable caravan, that they had nothing to fear from the Bedouin Arabs, who make it their only profession to range the country; and attack and plunder the caravans when they are not strong enough to repulse them. They had no other difficulty to encounter, than the usual fatigues of a long journey, which were easily forgotten when they came in sight of the city of Bagdad, where they arrived ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... came another shallop, containing some of my companions. This although behind time, was yet in season for the booty, which, however, was not of much account. There were only robes of beaver-skin, and dead bodies, covered with blood, which the savages would not take the trouble to plunder, laughing at those in the last shallop, who did so; for the others did not engage in such low business. This, then, is the victory obtained by God's grace, for gaining which they gave us ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... death, according to the book called the "Nipotismo di Roma," {6a} there were in the Barbarini family two hundred and twenty-seven governments, abbeys, and high dignities; and so much hard cash in their possession that threescore and ten mules were scarcely sufficient to convey the plunder of one of them to Palestrina.' He added, however, that it was probable that Christendom fared better whilst the Popes were thus independent, as it was less sucked, whereas before and after that period, it was sucked by hundreds instead of tens, by the cardinals ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... motive. One of the secondary chiefs who had formed a friendship for Mr. R. Stuart, informed him, that seeing us reduced in number by the expedition lately sent off, they had formed the design of surprising us, to take our lives and plunder the post. We hastened, therefore, to put ourselves in the best possible state of defence. The dwelling house was raised, parallel to the warehouse; we cut a great quantity of pickets in the forest, and formed a square, with palisades in front and rear, of about 90 feet by 120; the warehouse, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... it to the colonial office; that an officer would naturally have sent it to the war office; and a private would have sent it to the war office, unless he had carried it off as mere private booty and plunder,—in which case it would have been unlikely that it would have reached a public place of custody. But we find it in the possession of the church and of the church official having, until independence was declared, special jurisdiction over Episcopal interests in Massachusetts and Plymouth. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... it was a regular work of Pictish masonry, but the spiral galleries, which these openings revealed, had been completely choked up, in taking away the materials of which they were built. Although plenty of stone may be found everywhere in the islands, there seems to be a disposition to plunder these remarkable remains, for the sake of building cottages, or making those inclosures for their cabbages, which the islanders call crubs. They have been pulling down the Pictish castle, on the little island in the fresh-water loch called Cleikimin, near Lerwick, described with such ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... of Obadiah's prophecy expositors are not agreed. The whole question turns upon the interpretation of verses 11-14. That these contain an historic allusion to the exultation of the Edomites over the capture and plunder of Jerusalem cannot well be doubted. If this was the final capture of the city by the Chaldeans, then Obadiah's place will be after the beginning of the Babylonish captivity. But since no mention is made of the burning of Jerusalem, ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... unanswerable show—an immense revenue of annual cash from iron, cotton, woollen, leather goods, and a hundred other things, all bolstered up by "protection." But the really important point of all is, into whose pockets does this plunder really go? It would be some excuse and satisfaction if even a fair proportion of it went to the masses of laboring-men—resulting in homesteads to such, men, women, children—myriads of actual homes in fee simple, in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... Elizarych! How could I plunder anybody? My business is of a small sort. I'm like a little bird, picking ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... improvement, security, and happiness. The moment India falls again under the dominion of any one or any number of native princes, all hope of mental improvement, or even of security for person or property, will at once vanish. Nothing could be then expected but scenes of rapine, plunder, bloodshed, and violence, till its inhabitants were sealed over to irremediable wretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the future. And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... thing more. I fancy that all these things are now much better managed in Italy than in America, only we grumble at them there and stand them in silence at home. Every one can recall frightful instances of plunder, in which he was the victim, at New York—in which the robbery had none of the neatness of an operation, as it often has in Italy, but was a brutal mutilation. And then as regards civility from the same kind of people in the two countries, there ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... is true that some five millions of whites in the South have no slaves; but these "are now said to exist in this manner in a condition little removed from savage life, eking out a wretched subsistence by hunting, by fishing, by hiring themselves for occasional jobs, by plunder." These "mean whites ... are the natural growth of the slave system; ... regular industry is only known to them as the vocation of slaves, and it is the one fate which above all others they ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... warning horns and bell-surmounted rocks. On the trunk of this great tree may still be seen the marks of stone tomahawks of the primitive inhabitants of the island. There is none now to disturb and plunder ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... sent John-Langlife-son and Henry Scot west to the Orkneys, to procure pilots for Shetland. From thence John sailed to the Hebrides and told King Dugal that he might expect an army from the East. It had been rumoured that the Scots would plunder in the islands that summer. King Dugal, therefore, spread abroad a report that forty ships were coming from Norway. And by this means he prevented the Scotch ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson

... victory won (September, B. C. 479), the conquerors were dazzled by the gorgeous plunder which remained—tents and couches decorated with precious metals—cups, and vessels, and sacks of gold— and the dead themselves a booty, from the costly ornaments of their chains and bracelets, and cimeters vainly splendid—horses, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... on their backs a weight of about eighty pounds through woods, over streams, and across mountains, in parties generally of one hundred or more, who have frequent occasion to defend their property against the spirit of plunder and extortion which prevails among the poorer nations through whose districts they are obliged to pass. Upon the proposal of striking out any new road the question always asked by these intermediate people is, apa ontong kami, what ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... He would like to have taken them again, to help her up the bank, but she sprang up like a deer, and would not give him the opportunity. Then they had a merry laugh at the magpie, who had fluttered down all this way before them, to see if they were on a foraging expedition, and if there were any plunder going, and now could not summon courage to cross the river, but stood crooning and cursing by the brink. Then they sauntered away, side by side, along the sandy track, among the knolls of braken, with the sunlit boughs whispering knowingly to one another in the evening breeze as they passed beneath.—An ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... from improper sources, and improper amounts. Their common characteristic is base-gaining, since they all submit to disgrace for the sake of gain and that small; because those who receive great things neither whence they ought, nor what they ought (as for instance despots who sack cities and plunder temples), we denominate wicked, impious, and unjust, but ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... the north, fears his power, and could offer but a feeble resistance, were Tippoo once master of the south and west coast. The Mahrattis can always be bought over, especially if there is a prospect of plunder. He relies, too, upon aid from France; for although the French, since the capture of Pondicherry, have themselves lost all chance of obtaining India, they would gladly aid in any enterprise that would bring about the fall of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... of many witnesses. Ghino was not only suffered to escape in safety, but (as the commentators inform us) obtained so high a reputation by the liberality with which he was accustomed to dispense the fruits of his plunder, and treated those who fell into his hands with so much courtesy, that he was afterwards invited to Rome, and knighted by Boniface VIII. A story is told of him by ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... the baron would not tolerate his arrogance, and so with more moderation he exclaimed: "It isn't strange that I've become suspicious. I'm so victimized on every side. Because I'm a foreigner and immensely rich, everybody fancies he has a right to plunder me. Men, women, hotel-keepers and merchants, all unite in defrauding me. If I buy pictures, they sell me vile daubs at fabulous prices. They ask ridiculous amounts for horses, and then give me worthless, worn-out animals. Everybody borrows money from me—and I'm ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... from the catchwords which pretend to govern his actions; he will sit and croon the most heartrending ditties in celebration of home-life and a mother's love, and then set forth incontinently upon a well-planned errand of plunder. For all his artistry, he lacks balance as flagrantly as a popular politician or an advanced journalist. Therefore it is the more remarkable that in one point he displays a certain caution: he boggles at a superfluous murder. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... in it, her husband has never been accustomed to lock the bedroom door. Both he and his wife are, by their own admission, heavy sleepers. Consequently, the risk to be run by any evil-disposed persons wishing to plunder the bedroom was of the most trifling kind. They could enter the room by merely turning the handle of the door; and if they moved with ordinary caution, there was no fear of their waking the sleepers inside. This fact is of importance. It strengthens ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... he may go forth to lawful warfare by order of the supreme court of seventy-one, and he may break down a road for himself, and none can prevent him. The road of a king is without measure, and all the people plunder and lay it before him. And he takes part first. He must not multiply wives beyond eighteen. R. Judah said, "he may multiply wives for himself so long as they do not turn away his heart." R. Simon said, "even if one turn away ...
— Hebrew Literature

... waterway was constructed at public expense, and was owned by New York State. The commercial men could succeed in having it managed for their purposes and profit, and the politicians could often extract plunder from the successive contracts, but there was no opportunity or possibility for the exercise of the usual capitalist methods of fraudulent diversion of land, or of over-capitalization and exorbitant rates with which to pay ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... eyeglass at the surrounding tenements. He was a splendid specimen in appearance of the dudie sweet, and the moment the eyes of the gamins fell upon him they saw a chance for fun. It was at first intended as a raid for fun, but in the end it became plunder. ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey

... what evil purpose could have induced Pope to break his promise. He could not delight his vanity by usurping the work, which, though not sold in shops, had been shown to a number more than sufficient to preserve the author's claim; he could not gratify his avarice, for he could not sell his plunder till Bolingbroke was dead; and even then, if the copy was left to another, his fraud would be defeated, and if left to himself ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... but they reflect dishonour upon the remaining third portion of the Texans, who have come from distant climes for the honest purposes of trade and agriculture. This mongrel and mixed congregation of beings, though firmly united in one point (war with Mexico, and that in the expectation of a rich plunder), are continually at variance on other points. Three thousand Texans would fight against Mexico, but not two hundred against the Mormons; and that for many reasons: government alone, and not an individual, would be a gainer by a victory; ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... good-will of the poor and peaceful inhabitants of those regions, whom they never disturb, and whom they often enrich. Indeed, they are looked upon as a sort of illegitimate heroes among the mountain villages, and some of the frontier towns, where they dispose of their plunder. From these mountains they keep a look-out upon the plains and valleys, and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... by no means a friend of his. Have I ever visited him in his domain or entered his door, or passed through his compound? [Never!] He is a man whose heart becometh full of evil thoughts, whensoever he seeth me, and he wisheth to carry out his fell design and plunder me. He is like a wild bull seeking to slay the bull of a herd of tame cattle so that he may make the cows his own. Or rather he is a mere braggart who wisheth to seize the property which I have collected by my prudence, and not an experienced warrior. Or rather he is a bull that loveth to ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... marched off our party to the camping-place, they proceeded to overhaul their pockets, and then bound them securely to some trees, whilst one stood ready with a pistol to shoot the first that should call for help, and the others looked over the plunder. This was little enough, for our travelling money, which was notes, was kept—strange treasury—in the lining of the body of my dress, and here too were the gold receipts from the Escort Office. Every night I took out about sufficient ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... soldiers might have found it difficult to resist. We read of whole regiments in the English and French services refusing to obey orders, and of mutinies of officers as well as of men. The one reward of service was the chance of plunder, and naturally, then, as soon as the fighting with the Nawab had stopped for a time, the desertions from the British forces were numerous. Colonel Clive had more than once written to Renault to remonstrate with him for taking ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... violence, and shut herself up in a closet, in order that she might escape ravishment. But no one came to disturb her solitude, and she began to be sensible that poor Donald was looking out for victuals, or seeking for some small plunder, without bestowing a thought on the fair sex; by and by she popped her head out of her place of refuge with the petty question, "Good folks, can you tell when the ravishing is going to begin?" I am sure I shall neither hide myself to avoid applause, which probably no one will think of conferring, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... plundered far beyond the Belt,—in the ocean itself, in Flanders and the opulent trading havens there,—above all, in opulent anarchic England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the pirates' Goshen; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, Danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country Jomsburg or the viking-world had ever known. Palnatoke, Bue, and the other quasi-heroic heads of this establishment are still remembered in the northern parts. Palnatoke is the title ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... side with the report of Miss Polot's engagement was a short account of the starvation at Pullman, and another column was headed, 'Nothing to arbitrate: Pullman says he has nothing to arbitrate.' Did you see that the reporters carefully estimated just how much Miss Polot's share of the plunder ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... steps with this basket on her arm, and this, not only that the keys may be always at hand, but because, should they be out of sight one moment, that moment would infallibly be employed for purposes of plunder. It seemed to me in this instance, as in many others, that the close personal attendance of these sable shadows, must be very annoying; but whenever I mentioned it, I was assured that no such feeling existed, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... what those joys unknown that men do feel In stress of fight. He saw how great a test Of manhood is a stubborn war, which draws Out all that's worst in men or all that's best: Their fiercest brutal passions from all laws Set free, men burn and plunder, rape and steal; ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... Horatio, tho' no less fond of glory, had a softness in his nature, which made him languish for the sight of his dear Charlotta, whom he had been absent from near two years; and being now blessed with a fortune from the plunder of Saxony, which might countenance his pretensions to her, passionately longed for an opportunity of returning without incurring the censure of cowardice or ingratitude. By these couriers he received letters from the baron de la Valiere, and several others of his friends, but none from the father ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... a branch of the Macdonalds (who were a brave courageous people always), seated among the Campbells, who (I mean the Glencoe men) are all Papists, if they have any religion, were always counted a people much given to rapine and plunder, or sorners as we call it, and much of a piece with your highwaymen in England. Several governments desired to bring them to justice; but their country was inaccessible to small parties." See An impartial Account of some of the Transactions in Scotland concerning the Earl of Breadalbane, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in desperation St. Clair ordered his men to break through the deadly cordon and save themselves as best they could. The Indians kept up a hot pursuit for a distance of four miles. Then, surfeited with slaughter, they turned to plunder the abandoned camp; otherwise there would have been escape for few. As it was, almost half of the men in the engagement were killed, and less than five hundred got off with no injury. The survivors gradually straggled into the river ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... "were held by themselves or friends, and no admittance to their secrets was allowed except to the initiated, whose favourable out-of-door statements could be relied on. Never since the Norman invasion of England was there such a wholesale partition of plunder."[37] Many persons owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, entire townships.[38] Others owned thousands of acres which they had never seen. As the taxes imposed on unsettled lands were trifling, these immense tracts were no appreciable expense to their owners, who could hold them from ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... there isn't, sir. A miserable one-eyed place with only two cottages in it, and I dare say that old woman's in the other, sharing the plunder? What a fool ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... declaration against confiscations, and then they expressly exclude all adherents to their ancient lawful government from any benefit of it: that is to say, they promise that they will secure all their brother plunderers in their share of the common plunder. The fear of being robbed by every new succession of robbers, who do not keep even the faith of that kind of society, absolutely required that they should give security to the dividends of spoil, else they could not exist a moment. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the skull of a tiger. You observe the organ of carnage. Here is the skull of a fox. You observe the organ of plunder. Here is the skull of a peacock. You observe the organ of vanity. Here is the skull of an illustrious robber, who, after a long and triumphant process of depredation and murder, was suddenly checked in his career by means of a certain quality inherent in preparations of hemp, which, for ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... endeavoring to excite an insurrection of the slaves, had been conducting a predatory and incendiary warfare against the colony, until driven away by the militia, when he sailed off in a fleet loaded with plunder. In North Carolina, where an association of patriots had declared for independence at Mecklenburg as early as May, 1775, a severe battle occurred at Moore's Creek Bridge, February 26, 1776, between the patriots, led by Colonel ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... the movement from love of fighting for fighting's sake, like the Garibaldian Poles. Some joined it from ambition, but the majority of the men who later on died on the walls or in the streets in the Federalist ranks died, as they believed, for the Republic, and had no idea of the plunder of the rich. Ricciotti Garibaldi was near Dijon "in observation," as he afterwards told me. He said that he wanted to march upon Versailles with his excellent little army, which would have followed him, and fought well, and would certainly have taken the new capital, although it would have been ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... a few odds and ends of things," was his reply; "but most of what you see belongs to my nephew, Mark Osborne. A great-aunt left him her property when she died, this house, and a good deal of what Mark himself disrespectfully calls plunder." ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... near an hour. It was now about seven o'clock. The French infantry had in vain been brought against our line and, as a last resource, Buonaparte resolved upon attacking our part of the position with his veteran Imperial Guard, promising them the plunder of Brussels. Their artillery and they advanced in solid column to where we lay. The Duke, who was riding behind us, watched their approach; and at length, when within a hundred yards of us, exclaimed 'Up, guards, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... After Nelson succeeded in his attack on the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile Nairne rejoices that his country is supreme on the sea, "By ruling the waves she will rule the wealth of the world not by plunder and conquest but by wisdom and commerce and increasing riches everywhere to the happiness of mankind." On March 20th, 1801, when Austria had just made with France the Peace of Luneville, Ker ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... to sit still in the quiet enjoyment of his good fortune. In the year 1690, he went on a military expedition against the French colonies in America, conquered the whole province of Acadie, and returned to Boston with a great deal of plunder." ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... dyes the West-Indian Seas with blood, piles his decks with plunder; approves himself the expertest Seaman, the daringest Seafighter: but he gains no lasting victory, lasting victory is not possible for him. Not, had he fleets larger than the combined British Navy all united with him in bucaniering. He, once for all, cannot prosper in his ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... which follow the march of an army. Most of these wretches were not soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law. Yet it was, he owned, but too evident that they were encouraged and screened by some who were in high command. How else could it be that a market overt for plunder should be held within a short distance of the capital? The stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more common than for an honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the industry of a long life, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... he begged impressively, his dark face very set. "Plunder them, turn them destitute upon the world, if you will, but remember, at ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... were virtues that Lord Vargrave peremptorily demanded in a servant; and as he paid the best price for the articles—less in wages than in plunder—he was ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... years England had lain under the terrible interdict; for most of the time only a single bishop had remained in England. John had small need to tax the people: he lived upon the plunder of bishops and abbots. The churches were desolate; the worship of God in large districts almost came to an end. Only in the Cistercian monasteries, and in them only for a time, and to a very limited extent, were ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... plunder of the Church that we must seek for the primary cause of our political exclusion, and our commercial restraint. That unhallowed booty created a factitious aristocracy, ever fearful that they might be called upon to regorge their ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... new source of plunder, peculation, and bribery, which was not neglected. Revolutions were no longer necessary; succession supplied their places: and well the object agreed with the policy. Rules of succession could not be very well ascertained to an office like that of the Nabob, which was hereditary only ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... barons and knights were thus amusing themselves at the beginning of Richard's reign with fighting for castles and provinces, either for the pleasure of fighting, or for the sake of the renown or the plunder which they acquired when they were fortunate enough to gain the victory, the great mass of the people of England were taxed and oppressed by their haughty masters to an extent almost incredible. The higher ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... some parts of India deemed sacred, and is permitted by the Hindus to plunder their grain-shops with impunity; but I think that with increasing hard times the Hanumans are not allowed such freedom as they used to have, and in most parts of India I have been in they are considered an unmitigated nuisance, and the people have implored the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... contemplate, honorable Mexicans, the lot of peaceful and industrious citizens in all classes of your country. The possessions of the Church menaced and presented as an allurement to revolution and anarchy; the fortunes of rich proprietors pointed out for plunder of armed ruffians; and merchants and the mechanic, the husbandman and the manufacturer, burdened with contributions, excises, monopolies, duties on consumption, surrounded by officers and collectors ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... doing seem to grow continually smaller, I intend to grasp at every opportunity that turns up. The cowboys were all eager for war, not caring much with whom. They were fond of adventure and to tell the truth [as Roosevelt wrote later], they were by no means averse to the prospect of plunder. News from the outside world came to us very irregularly, and often in distorted form, so that we began to think we might get involved in a conflict not only with Mexico, but with England also. One evening at my ranch the men began talking over English soldiers, so I got down ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... its primitive shape, is rubbed down on every side until it is perfectly smooth. They then make an incision in the flesh, generally the arm or leg, put in the ruby and allow the skin to heal over it, so that the stone remains there. Soldiers and sailors in search of plunder will find out any thing, and this practice of the Burmahs was soon discovered; and after the assault and carrying of a stockade, you would see the men passing their hands over the bodies, and immediately they felt a rising in the limb, out with their knives ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... sincere, not to say honest, labour leader, from business agent up. Poor proletaire! forever crucified between two sets of thieves—one rioting on his rights, the other carousing on his wrongs. Labour plods while plunder plays, thus runs the world away. But if he should take it into his thick head to be his own walking ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... Garcon to seize the place, which he did, gathering about him a large band of runaway negroes, Choctaw Indians, and other lawless persons, whom he organized into a strong company of robbers. Garcon made the fort his stronghold, and began to plunder the country round about as thoroughly as any robber baron or Italian bandit ever did, sometimes venturing across the ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... for they would quarrel with you at the first turn, because you would not be ruled by them as captain, and then they would shoot or pike you (God save the mark, dear), and give the castle to Joe Kelly, and the plunder all among 'em entirely. So it was all laid out, and they are all to meet in the cave to-morrow evening—they will go along bearing a funeral, seemingly to the abbey-ground. And now you know the whole truth, and the Lord preserve you! And what will be done? My poor head has no more power ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... in the leafy bush, Sae soft and warm, sae soft and warm, And Robins thought their little brood All safe from harm, all safe from harm. The morning's feast with joy they brought, To feed their young wi' tender care; The plunder'd leafy bush they found, But nest ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... small private collections and out of the many barrows that have been explored only in a certain number of instances have any accurate records been taken. It is thus a somewhat difficult task to discover how much or how little of the plunder of the burial mounds belongs to the Neolithic and how much to the Bronze and later ages. The Neolithic people buried in long barrows which are by no means common in Yorkshire, but many of the round ones that have been thoroughly examined reveal no traces of metal, stone implements ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... reliably, less intelligently, and less impartially than he would by himself alone. We know how men in a crowd do indeed lose some of the best features of their individuality. A crowd may be thrown into a panic, may rush into any foolish, violent action, may lynch and plunder, or a crowd may be stirred to a pitch of enthusiasm, may be roused to heroic deeds or to wonderful generosity, but whether the outcome be wretched or splendid, in any case it is the product of persons who have ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... greater part of the year these poor people dare not walk over their own fields for fear of being stripped of their tattered rags. And yet these are the most heavily taxed peasantry in the world. They pay black-mail to the Bedawin, who plunder them notwithstanding; and they pay taxes to the Turks, who give them no protection. The Bedawin enforce their claims by cutting off the ears of any straggling villagers from defaulting villages, who fall within their power, and by carrying off for ransom a number of village ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... house, and, tying up their horses, entered. It was a fine chateau, handsomely furnished, but short as was the time that the Sardinians had held possession, they had already tumbled everything into confusion in their search for plunder. Tables and couches had been upset, closets and chiffoniers burst open with the butt-ends of the swords or with the discharge of a pistol into the lock. Looking-glasses had been smashed, valuable vases lay in fragments on the floor, bottles of wine whose necks had been hastily knocked off stood ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... England. The district of Furness in Lancashire—then as now an iron-producing district—was frequently ravaged with that object; and on such occasions the Scotch seized and carried off all the manufactured iron they could find, preferring it, though so heavy, to every other kind of plunder.[23] About the same period, however, iron must have been regarded as almost a precious metal even in England itself; for we find that in Edward the Third's reign, the pots, spits, and frying-pans of the royal kitchen were ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... hereditary enemies of the Sumerians, although a people apparently of the same origin. Like the Nubians and the Libyans, who kept watchful eyes on Egypt, the Elamites seemed ever to be hovering on the eastern frontier of Sumeria, longing for an opportunity to raid and plunder. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... said that severe penalties have been imposed on those who plunder the population, and there is already a list of convictions. Volpatte has been sent down. Men of Class '93 are going to be sent to the rear, and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse



Words linked to "Plunder" :   law-breaking, ruin, deplume, offence, rape, criminal offence, offense, cut, crime, destroy, criminal offense, steal, take, stolen property, displume



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