"Plundering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his family—just before he was ordered to the Lake frontier. The war had stirred up the Indians to acts of violence they had not committed for many years, and a tribe of them came down on the village, plundering, burning, killing, and torturing those whom they had known in ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... All the mechanical reforms for the recovery of government by the people, that had been originated between 1889 and 1897, were revived once more, and there was added to confidence in them a widespread belief in the existence of a malevolent, plundering class. ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... hot-pressed bibles, and morocco prayer books, and all such excellent helps, to teach him that "God is love", and "mercy his delight"; that such a one, I say, should have originated the infernal warfare, of plundering, burning, and hanging the American patriots, is most HORRIBLE. And yet, if possible, more true than horrible. Yes, sure as the day of doom, when that fearful day shall come, and lord Cornwallis, stript of his "brief authority", shall stand, a trembling ghost before that equal bar: ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... at San Francisco that, under existing circumstances, they would not be able successfully to oppose any force which the government might send by sea from Acapulco; I pointed out to them that their rulers, too happy in having a pretext for plundering them, would show them no mercy, after what had taken place; and I then represented, that if they were at once to declare their independence, and open their ports to strangers, they would, in a short time, become sufficiently wealthy and powerful to ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... of civilians were killed. The troops entered the city on the evening of March 18 and took the mayor and three other men of the town as hostages. Apparently the Russian commander made some efforts to restrain his men, but plundering of stores and dwellings nevertheless occurred. On the 20th of March, 1915, the city was for a time cleared of Russian troops, but on Sunday, the 21st, other soldiers entered the town from the north. These were met by German patrols, which were followed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... power above them. Every Avaretz calls himself an Ouzden; and if he possesses a yezeer, (prisoner, slave,) he considers himself a great man. Poor, and consequently brave to extravagance, excellent marksmen with the rifle, they fight well on foot; they ride on horseback only in their plundering expeditions, and even then but a few of them. Their horses are small, but singularly strong; their language is divided into a multitude of dialects, but is essentially Lezghin for the Avartzi themselves are of the Lezghin stock. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... one another, and quickly dispersing, swarmed over the house, plundering and breaking, according to their custom, and carrying off such articles of value as happened to please their fancy. They had no great length of time for these proceedings, for the basket of tools was soon prepared and slung over a man's shoulders. The preparations being now completed, and everything ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... that he had not only sailed from Brundisium but had actually landed at Dyrrhachium. I anticipate that the job I have sent him on will take all of six years. Just about when your service is drawing to an end he will return to Rome covered with glory and loaded with loot. The nomads have been plundering our cities and have accumulated in their strongholds immense amounts of treasure. He'll get it back. Meantime your mind should be ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Dr. Scott to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions-house at the Old-Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... been with Grenville in the voyage of 1585 to Virginia. Frobisher's attempts inspired him with the ambition of the age. In 1586 he, too, sailed through the Straits of Magellan, burning and plundering Spanish ships, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Plymouth in 1588, having been gone about two ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... important missions. He also took part in the Alexandrian and Spanish wars. He was rewarded for his services by being admitted into the college of pontiffs. In 43 he was quaestor in Further Spain, where he amassed a large fortune by plundering the inhabitants. In the same year he crossed over to Bogud, king of Mauretania, and is not heard of again until 21, when he appears as proconsul of Africa. Mommsen thinks that he had incurred the displeasure of Augustus by his conduct as praetor, and that his African appointment ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... with a whisk-broom, when the farm-dog has discovered his retreat in the stone fence. He renders himself obnoxious to the farmer by his partiality for hens' eggs and young poultry. He is a confirmed epicure, and at plundering hen-roosts an expert. Not the full-grown fowls are his victims, but the youngest and most tender. At night Mother Hen receives under her maternal wings a dozen newly hatched chickens, and with much pride and satisfaction feels them all safely ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... old chronicler, and a Protestant, thus testifies, 1542:—"And since this time (the Reformation) a great change has come over all things. In place of piety, we have profanity; in place of reverence, sacrilege and the plundering of God's churches; in place of alms-deeds, stinginess and selfishness; in place of feasts, greed and gluttony; in place of festivals, labour; in place of obedience and humility of children, obstinacy and self-opinion; ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... as such, was the plundering of a tailor's shop in the township. A committee of vigilance had been already organized, and its members sent Fenton word that if he did not return what he had stolen he should be hunted out ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... Martin!" exclaimed La Corne, who looked at the card, "some of them shall bite dust for that! As for Le Gardeur, poor boy, overlook his fault—pity him, forgive him. He is not so much to blame, Pierre, as those plundering thieves of the Friponne, who shall find that La Corne St. Luc's sword is longer by half an ell than is good for some ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Like a flock of vultures the English descended upon the fair realm of France, ravaging as they went, leaving ruin behind their footsteps, marching hither and thither at will, now victorious, now beaten, yet ever plundering, ever desolating. Wherever they came the rich were ruined, the poor were starved, want and misery stared each other in the face, happy homes became gaping ruins, fertile fields became sterile wastes. It was a pandemonium of war, a frightful orgy of military license, a scene to make the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... great majority of the gentlemen rose early as Aurora. The chase is the favourite pastime of man and boy; yet some preferred plundering their host's preserves, by which means their slumbers were not so brief and their breakfast less disturbed. The battue, however, in time, called forth its band, and then one by one, or two by two, or sometimes even three, leaning on each other's arms and smiling ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... thoughtless adoption of a language expressing an aristocratic hauteur that did not belong to his real character. There was, indeed, at that moment no need that fresh fuel should be applied to the irritation of the rebels; they had already declared their intention of plundering the town; and, as they added, "in spite of the French," whom they now regarded, and openly denounced, as "abetters of the Protestants," much more than as their ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... be had of extensive harrying of the country on this march. His army was obliged to live on what it could take from the inhabitants, and this foraging was unquestionably accompanied with much unnecessary plundering; but there is no convincing evidence of any systematic laying waste of large districts to bring about a submission which everything would show to be coming of itself, and it was not like William to ravage without need. He certainly ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare, Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Gen. Forrest refused to grant this, saying that he only demanded the surrender of the fort and not the gun-boat. He demanded an immediate surrender, which was promptly declined by Major Bradford. During the time these negotiations were going on, Forrest's men were stealing horses, plundering the buildings in front of the fort, and closing in upon the fort through the ravines, which was unsoldierly and cowardly to say the least. Upon receiving the refusal of Major Booth to capitulate, Forrest gave a signal and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Ferajji, who had been despatched after the truant Khamisi, returned with him and all the missing articles. Khamisi, soon after leaving the road and plunging into the jungle, where he was mentally triumphing in his booty, was met by some of the plundering Washensi, who are always on the qui vive for stragglers, and unceremoniously taken to their village in the woods, and bound to a tree preparatory, to being killed. Khamisi said that he asked them why they tied him up, to which they answered, that they were about to kill him, because ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... house like a mad dog; for, be assured, that a being so base and cruel is never to be reclaimed: all your efforts at persuasion are useless; his promises and vows are made but to be broken; all your endeavours to keep the thing from the knowledge of the world, only prolong his plundering of you; and many a tender father and mother have been ruined by such endeavours; the whole story must come out at last, and it is better to come out before you be ruined, than after your ruin ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... conceal himself in intricate and woody places, and in those neighborhoods in which he had discovered we were about to march, he used to drive the cattle and the inhabitants from the fields into the woods; and, when our cavalry, for the sake of plundering and ravaging the more freely, scattered themselves among the fields, he used to send out charioteers from the woods by all the well-known roads and paths, and, to the great danger of our horse, engaged with them; and this source of fear ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... the Thracians who were left in charge of it, and began to plunder. This was stopped by the phalangite troops of the second line, who, after the enemy's horsemen had rushed by them, faced about, countermarched upon the camp, killed many of the Indians and Persians in the act of plundering, and forced the rest to ride off again. Just at this crisis, Alexander had been recalled from his pursuit of Darius, by tidings of the distress of Parmenio, and of his inability to bear up any longer against the hot attacks of Mazaeus. Taking his horse-guards with him, Alexander ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Robin of Redesdale, "the commons were oppressed, the people discontented, the Woodvilles plundering, and the king wasting our substance on concubines and minions. We have had cause eno' for our rising!" The earl listened to each ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from the whole order. That the works of Celtic poets possessed real literary merit, we have the authority of Spenser for believing. The author of the "Faerie Queene" was not the friend of the Irish, whom he assisted in plundering and destroying under Elizabeth. He could only judge of their books from English translations, not being sufficiently acquainted with the language to understand its niceties. Yet he had to acknowledge that their poems "savoured of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... cure, with many other of the inhabitants, sought refuge in the capital, leaving his house at the mercy of the enemy, who commenced plundering in all directions; the humble and modest appearance of M. Detruissart's cottage not attracting their notice, it remained untouched, when a single word from any of the inhabitants would have devoted it to ruin; but such was their esteem for him, that ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... stepped into the little office of her father. Black Lebrun was not there. She did not want him. In his place there sat the Pedlar and Joe Rix; they were members of Lord Nick's chosen crew, and since Nick's temporary alliance with Lebrun for the sake of plundering Jack Landis, Nick's men were Nelly's men. Indeed, this was a formidable pair. They were the kind of men about whom many whispers and no facts circulate: and yet the facts are far worse than the whispers. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... strength of both nations, and knew that the king's pride was decidedly become hateful to his subjects, which not even his own children could now endure. As he thus by degrees stirred up the nobles of the Gabians to renew the war, went himself with the most active of their youth on plundering parties and expeditions, and ill-grounded credit was attached to all his words and actions, framed as they were for deception, he is at length chosen general-in-chief in the war. There when, the people being still ignorant of what was really going ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... around the Arabs, one of the latter being mounted as sentry to prevent any sudden surprise—not indeed that they had the smallest fear of the Christians, who were far distant; but then, as now, the Arabs of the desert were a plundering race, and were ever ready to drive off each other's camels or horses. Cuthbert determined that if flight was possible it must be undertaken during the interval after the arrival at the halting-place and before the bringing in ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... all other men in the matter of spoils. Such was not the state of things one hundred years ago. The politicians were as well off in those times as they are in these,—perhaps they were bettor off, for things could then be openly done by civilians, in the way of plundering, that the men of to-day have to do as secretly as good Christians say their prayers. There were also many lucrative offices then in existence which have since disappeared under the labors of those economical reformers of whom Edmund ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... on, thinking too at times about the man who was dying and whom I was soon to see: he had been a bold bad plundering baron, but was said lately to have altered his way of life, having seen a miracle or some such thing; he had departed to keep a tournament near his castle lately, but had been brought back sore wounded, so this drunken servant, with some difficulty and much unseasonable merriment, had made ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... appoint to the other offices only such men as were bound to them, and whom they could trust to cover up their mutual dishonesty. Competency to discharge the duties of the offices thus given was not once considered. The Ring cared only for men who would unite in plundering the public treasury, and be vigilant in averting the detection of the theft. They wanted to exercise political power, it is true, but they also desired to enrich themselves at the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Once or twice their voices were heard to rise louder than good-feeling would have allowed, though the words they uttered were not caught by any listener. Were they haggling, as robbers have been known to do after successful operations in plundering, over the division of the spoils? At nightfall the Colonel returned to the city, and Camp Lyon and the Two Hundredth Regiment saw ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... rapid rate, and getting alongside the vessel, swarmed in numbers on board. We saw that the tipsy seamen who made a show of fighting were speedily knocked down, but what afterwards became of them we could not tell. The savages were evidently eagerly engaged in plundering the ship, and hurriedly loaded their canoes with the things they collected. They, of course, knew that the tide was rising, and that their operations might be speedily stopped. Some of the canoes, deeply laden, had already shoved ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... towns that were still untouched by war, hid themselves within their narrow walls, awaiting, in tremulous fear, the day on which their homes must also fall a prey to plundering soldiers. If any one were obliged to go beyond the boundaries, he would glance anxiously at the bushes on either side of the road; and when night came on, he would be forced to look with horror and sorrow at the reddened horizon, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Vandals and Byzantines, who gradually grew too weak to resist the floods of plundering Arab nomads; the rich merchants fled, their palaces fell to ruins; the town became a collection of mud huts inhabited by poor cultivators who lived in terror of the neighbouring Hammama tribe of true Arabs, that actually forbade them to walk beyond the limits ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... uncle's death. The French and Indians, after the surrender of Fort Necessity by Col. Washington, (which happened the same season, and soon after his victory over them at that place,) grew more and more terrible. The death of the whites, and plundering and burning their property, was apparently their only object: But as yet we had not heard the death-yell, nor seen the smoke of a dwelling that had been lit ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth bullet ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the duty of the State (nation) why should not the State resume the discharge of this duty when the corporate agents to which it has delegated it are found to be using the delegated power for the purpose of oppressing and plundering a public which it is the duty of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... Constantinople, the tide of money flowed that way, without ever returning; and was scattered in Asia. But when that mighty empire was overthrown by the northern people, such a stop was put to all trade and commerce, that vast sums of money were buried, to escape the plundering of the conquerors; and what remained was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... encountered greater troubles. The nobles had naturally taken umbrage at the vigorous policies of Richelieu, from which Mazarin seemed to have no thought of departing. They were strengthened, moreover, by a good deal of popular dislike of Mazarin's foreign birth, his avarice, his unscrupulous plundering of the revenues of the realm for the benefit of his own family, and his ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... stood there on the bleak mountain-side, the biting wind soughing through the leafless branches, the shadows of a gloomy winter night closing around us, the groans and shrieks of our wounded mingling with the triumphant yells of the Rebels plundering our tents, it seemed as if Fate could press to man's lips no cup with bitterer dregs in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in a state of nature, stands for laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and difficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself by any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime maxim ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... seen, never. Not if you live to be a 'undred... Well, as I was saying, that's how the Famine and Riotin' began. Then there was strikes and Socialism, things I never did 'old with, worse and worse. There was fightin' and shootin' down, and burnin' and plundering. They broke up the banks up in London and got the gold, but they couldn't make food out of gold. 'Ow did WE get on? Well, we kep' quiet. We didn't interfere with no-one and no-one didn't interfere with us. We 'ad some old 'tatoes about, but mocely we lived ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... that lord of theirs had married his daughter to a pirate or had made a pirate his heir or his partner in the management of the estate. All the change the serf would notice from the settlement was that the harrying and the plundering of occasional barbarian raids ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... let me have the seizing of Colonel Downright's Daughter; I would fain be plundering for ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... prototype, Cartagena succumbed to the very influences which had made her great. Her wealth excited the cupidity of freebooters, and her power aroused the jealousy of her formidable rivals. Her religion itself became an excuse for the plundering hands of Spain's enemies. Again and again the city was called upon to defend the challenge which her riches and massive walls perpetually issued. Again and again she was forced to yield to the heavy tributes and disgraceful penalties of buccaneers and legalized pirates who, like Drake, came to plunder ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, nor in order to excite commiseration; for, though I do feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition to the north, and I have never since had a moment's concern for any thing I left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined to open the country, and we shall see who have been ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but a handful of crackers, a tin of sardines—a comestible he had never seen before and did not like when he tasted it—and a bottle of what he thought wine but proved vinegar. Disgusted, he moved to the next wagon, overswarmed like the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... about the time of St. Louis, who forbade private wars among the nobles. My own opinion is quite the reverse. During the fourscore or hundred years that elapsed between his prohibition and the wars with England (1240-1340), the great lords being debarred from the accustomed sport of burning and plundering their neighbours' lands, became a terror to their own vassals. For the latter such a ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Protestants (i. e., such as adhered to Parliament)" against the government, the papists and malignants. His acts on the land were rather contradictory, if one reads the testimony. In 1647, for instance, a certain Walter Beane[83] at the request of Cuthbert Fenwick, said that during the plundering time, with the consent of Fenwick, he paid Ingle some tobacco, which was due Fenwick or Cornwallis. Ingle then gave him the following, "Received of Walter Beane five hund^r Thirty Eight pounds of Tob for a debt ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... His tribe is not a large one, but he himself is a fine fellow. As the lad told you, their head-quarters are in an oasis some eight or ten miles, I believe, east of the old site of Lake Mareotis. They, of course, like all those people, are frequently absent on hunting or plundering expeditions." ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... the guarantee and protection of the Catholic powers; on which X retorts: "The Catholic powers indeed! First of all, you ought to be sure whether the Catholic powers will not co-operate with the Jew, in the disgraceful act of plundering Christ through his Vicar, in order to guarantee him afterwards the last shreds of his garment." (Another somewhat novel view, by the way, of Gospel history.) "Secondly, you should learn whether any tribunal in the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... the firing was over, the rabble broke loose and a perfect reign of terror prevailed. The mob carried black flags and swept over town and country, plundering and murdering. The Christians were of course the first object of attack, and to tear down a church was the mob's fiercest joy. Seven of the most beautiful chapels were completely destroyed and ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... Indeed, the prematurely old and abortive house had its best counterpart in the young man himself, who stole into one of its small, unplastered rooms with many a wary glance, as though it were a treasure-vault which he was bent on plundering. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and defended the fathers and who, in trying circumstances, showed what should be done in their behalf. The other occasion was when one of our fathers, while going up the river, happened to encounter another chief who, on account of a murder, was plundering that district with many others who defended and guarded him. The father, dreading this man, sought the protection of Silongan, who happened to be in the same locality. The latter, with his numerous ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... forced to attend the reformed services and the Holy Communion, and their priests were hunted down. Attempts also were made to abolish the Christmas mummeries and the miracle plays. The archbishop of this period, Thomas Young, is accused of plundering the estates of the church in the interests of ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... a new military system. He made the army twice as effective and supported it at two-thirds less cost than before. It was his boast in his "Testament," that, from a mob, the army became "like a well-ordered convent." He found also that his subordinates were plundering the surrounding country, and thus rendering it disaffected; he at once ordered that what had been taken should be paid for, and that persons trespassing thereafter should be severely punished. He found also the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the singular number, and in the possessive case."—Ib., i, 228. "When the authorities on one side greatly preponderate, it is in vain to oppose the prevailing usage."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 173; Murray's Gram., i, 367. "A captain of a troop of banditti, had a mind to be plundering of Rome."—Collier's Antoninus, p. 51. "And, notwithstanding of its Verbal power, we have added the to and other signs of exertion."—Booth's Introd., p. 28. "Some of these situations are termed CASES, and are expressed by additions to the Noun instead of by separate words."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... are quite in the habit of attacking stage-coaches, and plundering the passengers. Sometimes they ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... ever came into my head was one that was founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of gold; it was a ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of sweating gold was only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, in the first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they call the vox humana ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... passing herself off as a man. She is in fellowship with Malcolm, while it is for her interest to be faithful to you, for by reason of being your man she has access to those houses which may be presumed to be profitable in the plundering. I cannot tell you any particular thing she has done, but I can send a message to the back door by reason of which she will fly from your house and never again ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... sooth," Lord Marmion cried, "Were I in warlike wise to ride, A better guard I would not lack Than your stout forayers at my back; But as in form of peace I go, A friendly messenger, to know Why through all Scotland, near and far, Their King is mustering troops for war. The sight of plundering Border spears Might justify suspicious fears, And deadly feud, or thirst of spoil, Break out in some unseemly broil: A herald were my fitting guide; Or friar, sworn in peace to bide Or pardoner, or travelling priest, Or strolling pilgrim, at ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... inspired him at the age of twenty with a lifelong animosity toward all Spaniards. Renouncing the semi-peaceful methods of Hawkins, Drake devoted his life to open privateering, never doubting that in plundering Spanish ships he was discharging a private debt and a public obligation. And of all the gentlemen adventurers who made plunder respectable and raised piracy to the level of a fine art, he was the greatest. He carried himself in the "pirate's profession with a courtesy, ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Marathas; but the period belongs to the first quarter of this century. It purports to be a free translation from a manuscript given to the author by a Hindu who had in his youth served with the Maratha armies, and latterly fell in with the Pindaree hordes, from whom he heard tales of their plundering raids. He eventually joins a band of robbers, and leads a wandering, adventurous life in the hills and jungles of the Dekhan, until the general pacification of the country by the British permits or obliges him to settle down quietly. The merit of the book consists entirely in its precise and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... into the launch, the natives, perceiving the opportunity of plundering would soon, be over, became every moment more daring and insolent. On this occasion I was indebted to the serjeant of marines, for suggesting to me the advantage that would arise from sending off his party first into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... commenced. There was but little plundering, for the Britons despised the Roman luxuries, of the greater part of which they did not even comprehend the use. They were Roman, and therefore to be hated as well as despised. Save, therefore, weapons, which were highly prized, and gold ornaments, which were taken as trinkets for the women at ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... desert. Tillage ceased, for there was no certainty of the cultivator reaping the crop; more likely it would be carried off or burnt by the conflicting armies. Beggars and vagabonds wandered about robbing and plundering without regard to party or religion; and social security was entirely ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... broke a breach in the concrete and the besiegers charged through, carrying back the defenders who sought vainly to plug the gap. Soon there would be rioting in the streets again, plundering and killing. ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... North Sea and the Baltic. On land the Teutons held the Rhine and the Danube against the legions of Rome, spread later southward and westward, and founded modern European states out of the wreckage of the Roman Empire. On the sea, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the 5th century began plundering the coasts of what is now England, and, after driving the Celts into mountain fastnesses, established themselves in ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... greedily plundering his prize, communicated the discovery to an officer, who immediately set out for the spot. When they had arrived there they continued for a long time to search in vain for their object, and the soldier was just about to be ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... Douglas could intercept Nor'-West brigades bound from Montreal to Fort Gibraltar, or from Fort Gibraltar to the Athabasca. Two days after our arrival, Cuthbert Grant, with a band of Bois-Brules, had gone to Fort Douglas to arrest Captain Miles McDonell for plundering Nor'-West posts. The doughty governor took Grant's warrant as a joke and scornfully turned the whole North-West party out of Fort Douglas. On the stockades outside were proclamations commanding settlers to take up arms in defense ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... his account undeceived the people of Manila. The governor despatched an armed fleet in command of Admiral Pedro Duran de Monforte, a soldier of long experience, but this remedy came too late; for the pirates, satiated with burning villages, plundering, and taking captives, had returned to their own country. Accordingly the armada, having vainly scouted along Luban, Mindoro, and Panay, returned to Manila, having accomplished nothing save the expenses which were caused for the royal exchequer, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... and plundering; so they go on," returned the Major, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to filling it anew; an employment that gave him an opportunity to give vent to his feelings, without pausing to puff.—"Ay, Master Hodge, praying and plundering; so ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... "The cowardly, plundering villains!" muttered Scarlett, and his hands involuntarily clenched, and he felt ready to rush out and face these nocturnal marauders, but he ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby, where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... desperadoes like themselves. There are hundreds of these lawless men prowling like wild beasts for their prey in the vicinity of every thoroughfare between the cities and the mines, robbing and murdering defenceless passengers, plundering the mails, and constantly exacting the best of their flocks and herds from the stockmen and shepherds, who in their isolated positions dare not refuse their demands. So desperate is the character ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... tomb was his own find. It had been found long before by the plundering Persians, and it had been found by Arabs who had plundered the Persian remains—but between and after those findings the oblivious sands had swept over it, blotting it from the world, choking the entrance hall and the shafts, seeping through ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... difficulty. The crew were disposed of as their officers had been, and the buccaneers rejoiced greatly at the good luck that had brought them so fine a ship. On the next morning Morgan intended to march toward Caracas, whence, after plundering that town and exacting a huge ransom for the lives of those he spared, he would lead his band back to La Guayra, embark on the frigate, and then ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... which served for a stable, entered the room, half frantic with joy, in which his auditors soon participated. On removing the saddle from one of the horses, he had found beneath it a small bag, containing, no doubt, the booty of one of the condottieri, who had returned from a plundering excursion, just before Ludovico left the castle, and whose horse having strayed from the inner court, while his master was engaged in drinking, had brought away the treasure, which the ruffian had considered ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... achievement. Those important events which give reputation to a warrior, and entitle him to a new name, are: killing a white (or grizzly) bear, stealing individually the horses of the enemy, leading a party who happen to be successful either in plundering horses or destroying the enemy, and lastly, scalping a warrior. These acts seem of nearly equal dignity, but the last, that of taking an enemy's scalp, is an honor quite independent of the act of vanquishing him. To kill your adversary is of no importance ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... we began to prepare for the great exploit our captain meditated, of landing on the coast and plundering some rich city; for which purpose our carpenters were ordered to fit up the launches or long boats we had taken from our prizes, so as to land our men in safety, and to fit two swivels in each launch. On the 11th we took a bark of fifty tons, laden ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... proceedings with so thick a veil, that they had been rarely detected. Report, however, spoke of him as a usurer of the vilest kind, who wrung exorbitant interest from needy borrowers,—who advanced money to expectant heirs, with the intention of plundering them of their inheritance,—and who resorted to every trick and malpractice permitted by the law to benefit himself at his neighbour's expense. These were bad enough, but even graver accusations were made against him. It was whispered that he had obtained fraudulent ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... us pray that come it may, As come it shall for a' that, That plundering gents may keep the sway, And help themselves, and a' that. For a' that and a' that. Leg bail's the thing, and a' that; For travelling improves the mind, The ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... coarse-looking fellows, but dressed better than bushrangers usually were, and I accounted for it by supposing that they had made a successful plundering expedition, and got new suits from their victims; and such I afterwards found ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Life looks with an open eye on his children, who die in a battle that is fought for the right; but he is blind, and his ears are shut to the cries of an Indian, who is killed when plundering, or doing evil to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... took to the four boats, and left the Chinamen to shift for themselves. Hundreds of savage natives rushed the vessel, killed a few of the coolies, and drove the rest on shore, where for some days they were not molested, the natives being too busy in plundering the ship. But after this was completed they turned their attention to their captives, marshalled them together, made them enter canoes and carried them off to a small, but fertile island. Here they were told to occupy a deserted village, and do as they ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... the British character and meek subservience to the British Government, as might perhaps be inferred from the following extract from an article on General Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had just received the thanks of his Sovereign and a munificent reward from Parliament for his successful plundering expedition ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... in aere ad ornatum civitatis deposuit, sed e ecclesiam B. Mariae ad martyres quae de tegulis aereis cooperta discooperuit, (Anast. in Vitalian. p. 141.) The base and sacrilegious Greek had not even the poor pretence of plundering a heathen temple, the Pantheon was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Holy Land may be told in a few words. The Christians, unmindful of their past sufferings and of the jealous neighbours they had to deal with, first broke the truce by plundering some Egyptian traders near Margat. The sultan immediately revenged the outrage by taking possession of Margat, and war once more raged between the nations. Margat made a gallant defence, but no reinforcements arrived ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Stewart, made to him when they were journeying together. I ought to have observed, that the ultimate intentions of Murel and his associates were by his own account on a very extended scale; having no less an object in view than raising the blacks against the whites, taking possession of, and plundering New Orleans, and making themselves possessors of the territory. The following are a few extracts from ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Friedland, of Wagram; the Emperor and the Marshals were nowhere. All the great movements were in consequence of his advice. And then his personal courage! The men he had killed with his own hand! As to the adventures which had fallen to his lot in storming and plundering towns, burning villages, quartering his men on country houses, these often belonged so much to the very seamiest side of war that Monsieur Joseph, soldier as he was, listened with a frown, and the Prefect coughed and glanced more than once at Angelot. For some of these ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... soon joined by its consort under Almagro, coasted slowly along in a northerly direction, running in at every bay, and landing whenever they approached a flourishing Indian village, plundering the natives and maltreating them in every shameful way. At length they aroused such a spirit of desperation on the part of the natives, that they fell upon the buccaneers with resistless ferocity. Two-thirds of the miscreants ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... if ports of call were established on the California coast, fresh meats and vegetables and pure water could be supplied to the galleons, and in addition, with presidios to defend them, they might escape the plundering pirates by whom they were beset. Accordingly plans were being formulated for the colonization and missionization of California when, by authority of his own sweet will, ruling a people who fully believed in the divine right of kings to do as they pleased, King Carlos the Third issued the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... might be produced in America as against what might be found by way of America. The occupation of the Bermuda Islands might almost be described as a retreat from the earlier search for a passage to China. The move could be viewed also as a reassertion of an old interest in plundering the Spaniard, for the Bermudas lay athwart the homeward route of Spain's treasure fleets. But in any case the primary interest was in America and its own peculiar opportunities, and the attention given by the early settlers in ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... was, the country appeared paralyzed at his approach: place after place fell before him, or bought him off by a heavy price; and though there were several citadels in the vanquished towns which held out for France, the Prince seldom stayed to subdue them, but contented himself with plundering and burning the town. Not a very glorious style of warfare for those days of vaunted chivalry, yet one, nevertheless, characteristic enough of the times. Every undertaking, however small, gave scope for deeds of individual gallantry and the exercise of individual acts of ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... braving sheer precipice and arctic blizzard in search of mountain pass or lower grade; the man with the pick and shovel, a mighty and ever-shifting army—English navvy, Irish canaller, Chinese coolie, Swede or Italian or Ruthenian—housed in noisome bunkhouses, often fleeced by employment agent or plundering sub-contractor, facing sudden death by reckless familiarity with dynamite or slower death by typhoid and dysentery; the men who carried on the humdrum work of every day, track-mending, ticket-punching, engine-stoking; ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... Joseph. Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, rebelled against God, and would not keep his commandments; for this they were cursed. Their posterity, in process of time, became a powerful nation, but extremely wicked; and their chief occupations were hunting, plundering, and roving about from place to place. In the Book of Mormon, they are called Lamanites. The other sons of Lehi were obedient to the commands of God. Their posterity, also, in the course of time, became a great nation, and were called Nephites. ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... any measure which afforded a reasonable promise of auspicious results. The army of Burgoyne was then hovering on their borders in its most menacing attitude. Marauding parties were daily penetrating the interior, and plundering and capturing the defenceless inhabitants, while each day brought the unwelcome news of the defection of individuals who had openly gone off to swell the ranks of the victorious enemy to whose alarming progress scarcely a show of resistance had yet been interposed. Nor was this the end ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... horoscope readers, and his grandfather had been the last high-priest of the Isis of Philae. His childhood had been passed on the island but then a Byzantine legion had succeeded in beating the Blemmyes, in investing the island, and in plundering and closing the temple. The priests of Isis escaped the imperial raid and Horapollo had spent all his early years with his father, his grandfather, and two younger sisters, in constant peril and flight. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... certainly no new doctrine. It is the doctrine of every red man on the American prairies, of every African chief who ornaments his hut with human skulls. It was the doctrine of our heathen forefathers, when they came hither slaying, plundering, burning, tossing babes on their spear-points. But I am sorry that it should be the doctrine of any one calling himself a gentleman, much more ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... of being unfairly clubbed out of it, is what the state has to preserve. It is only protecting property in more subtle and difficult ways than those in which the state has always protected it. The official who restrains the plundering monopoly, preserves honest wealth, and keeps open the field for independent enterprise does on a grand scale something that is akin to the work of the watchman who patrols the street to preserve order and ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... will seldom subside from the gallop. It was the increasing demand for these animals that had originally brought into existence and exercise a company, which, by a transition far from uncommon, passed readily from the plundering of horses to the cutting of throats and purses; scarcely discriminating in their reckless rapacity between the several degrees of crime in which such a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... whilst, on the other hand, the nepotism of Alexander—this Pope who is held up to obloquy as the archetype of the nepotist—had a tendency rather to enrich it. It was not to the States of the Church, not by easy ways of plundering the territories of the Holy See, that he turned to found dominions and dynasties for his children. He went beyond and outside of them, employing princely alliances as the means to his ends. Gandia was a duke in Spain; Giuffredo a prince in Naples, and Cesare a duke in France. ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... advised safe rather than showy measures, urging that he should wait for his colleague, in order that, joining their armies, they might carry on the war with united courage and counsels; and that, meanwhile, the enemy should be prevented from his unrestrained freedom in plundering by the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries; in a fury hurried out of the council, and at once gave out the signal for marching and for battle. "Nay, rather," says he, "let him be before the walls of Arretium, for here ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... the nations adjacent to a plundering people are themselves spoilers when opportunity offers, and hence are ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... President Grant, and everybody declared that he had the best manners in Washington. The secretaries and heads of departments seemed vulgar to him; though, of course, intrinsically they were infinitely above him, for he was only 'a plundering rascal.' But an impressive manner had been a tradition in the societies in which he had lived, because it was of great value in those societies; and it is not a tradition in America, for nowhere is it less ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... possible. It was for this reason, and for no just cause, that Cabades decided to make an expedition against the Romans. [502 A.D.] First he invaded the land of the Armenians, moving with such rapidity as to anticipate the news of his coming, and, after plundering the greater part of it in a rapid campaign, he unexpectedly arrived at the city of Amida, which is situated in Mesopotamia, and, although the season was winter, he invested the town. Now the citizens of Amida had no soldiers at hand, seeing that it was a time of peace and prosperity, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius |
