"Privateer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... against the authority of the Emperor of Brazil. In this struggle of a little State against a larger one, Garibaldi distinguished himself not only for his bravery but for his military talent of leadership. He took several prizes as a privateer, but was wounded in some engagement, and fled to Gualeguay, where he was thrown into prison, from which he made his escape, and soon after renewed his seafaring adventures, some of which were marvellous. After six years of faithful service to the Republic of Rio Grande, he bought ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... and Livingston recommended his lordship to Kidd, as a man of integrity and courage, acquainted with the pirates and their places of rendezvous, and as one in all respects fit to be intrusted with the command of a vessel engaged in such a difficult service. He had, indeed, commanded a privateer, in regular commission, against the pirates in the West Indies, in which service he had acquitted himself as a brave and adventurous man. The project not being entertained by the Board of Admiralty, a private adventure against the pirates was suggested by Mr. Livingston, one fifth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a man-o'-war or a privateer,' said he. Blow high, blow low, what care we! 'Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I'm sailing for my fee.' Down on the coast ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Negroes taken by an English privateer, and adjudged to slavery by the admiralty court, were now taken up, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hung. Five others received sentence the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... driven from Philadelphia. Defeat is not a good argument for an alliance. France was willing to send arms to America and willing to let American privateers use freely her ports. The ship which carried Franklin to France soon busied herself as a privateer and reaped for her crew a great harvest of prize money. In a single week of June, 1777, this ship captured a score of British merchantmen, of which more than two thousand were taken by Americans during the war. France allowed the American privateers ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Permit me to call your attention to this beautiful group, which has lately been added, at an enormous expense, to my collection. You here behold the first privateer and the first victim of his murderous propensities. Captain Kidd, the robber of the main, is supposed to have originated somewhere down east. His whole life being spent upon the stormy deep, he amassed an immense fortune, and buried it in the sand along the flower-clad ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... say. Den all of a sudden, to Sam's surprise, up came a colored soldier, and he speak to Sam in de English tongue. 'Holla, broder, how you come here?" I ask. 'I been cook on board English merchant ship,' he say. 'Ship she taken by French privateer. When dey come to port dey say to me, "You not Englishman, you hab choice, you go to prison, or you be French soldier." Natural, I not want go prison, so I conclude be French soldier. I daresay dey gib you choice too.' Well, massa, a wink as good ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... leave my wife in her old age because she is poor." When Bishop Wilson was an old man, Cardinal Fleury sent over to ask after his age and health, saying that they were the two oldest and poorest Bishops in the world. At the same time he got an order that no French privateer should ever ravage the Isle of Man. The order has long lapsed, but I am told that to this day French seamen respect a Manxman. It touches me to think of it that thus does the glory of this good man's life shine on our ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... transmit you a Memorial from the Council and Assembly of the Island of Dominica, who lay claim to the Dutch ship Resolution, Captain Waterburg, which has been retaken from an English privateer from Carolina, by the American privateer Ariel, belonging to Messrs Robert Morris, Samuel Inglis, and William Bingham, brought into Philadelphia, and condemned there as a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... down to facts; and, indeed, he had two or three pamphlets in his pocket, to support every thing he advanced by printed documents. The general, too, found himself betrayed into a more serious action than his dignity could brook; and looked like a mighty Dutch Indiaman, grievously peppered by a petty privateer. It was in vain that he swelled and looked big, and talked large, and endeavoured to make up by pomp of manner for poverty of matter; every home-thrust of the radical made him wheeze like a bellows, and seemed to let a volume of wind out ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Richmond, came with the staff in full uniform to make an official visit to the prison. He read an order of the Confederate War Department, directing him to select Officers bearing the highest rank, to be held as hostage for the lives of as many Privateer men who were held in Federal Prisons under the charge of piracy on the High Seas. The order required the hostages to be confined in the cells reserved for prisoners accused of infamous crimes. The hostages selected, seven in number, were ...
— Ball's Bluff - An Episode and its Consequences to some of us • Charles Lawrence Peirson
... a privateer or pirate," sung out another voice. This was followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher's axe is driven through a bullock's ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... commission in Washington's army in 1776 and was also Commodore of a privateer out of Boston in 1812. In consideration of his service in the war of 1776, the United States Government gave him a grant of land in Ohio, at that time one of the territories. Some years ago his heirs undertook to look up the records, but ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... were seen there was a general rush for telescopes on the part of all the officers on deck; and after a protracted scrutiny of them the general consensus of opinion was that they were a French privateer and a British merchantman which she had captured. Coming down toward us, end-on as they were, it was not easy at first to determine their rig, but both were large ships, one of them being of about six hundred tons, while the other appeared ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Burns, of Beaufort, was the commander of a cruiser known as the Snap-Dragon. With this privateer he long roamed the seas, and was victorious in many well fought actions. He survived the war and was afterwards a member of the Legislature. The village of Burnsville was ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... very true; but so many of the people are Quakers that the Assembly is under their control," answered Franklin. "But I think the appearance of a privateer in the river, or an attack by a band of blood-thirsty savages, would knock the non-resistance out ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... ships in these islands but because it was sold with permission to make its first voyage to Macan, and thence to return to Mexico without touching at this city. And now it has been learned by letters from private persons that the ship "Santa Ana," burned by the English privateer, has been sold at public auction in the plaza of the City of Mexico, also with the condition that permission would be given so that it could make another voyage to Macan. If this be so, it means the total ruin of this country; because it cannot be supported if ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... considered as about two thousand strong. Their naval force, according to the best intelligence, is the Charon, of forty-four guns, Commodore Symmonds, the Amphitrite, Iris, Thames, and Charlestown frigates, the Forvey, of twenty guns, two sloops of war, a privateer ship, and two brigs. We have about thirty-seven hundred militia embodied, but at present they are divided into three distant encampments: one under General Weeden, at Fredericksburg, for the protection of the important works there; another under General Nelson, at ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... boat; ironclad, turret ship, ram, monitor, floating battery; first-rate, frigate, sloop of war, corvette, gunboat, bomb vessel; flagship, guard ship, cruiser; armored cruiser, protected cruiser; privateer. [supporting ships] tender; store ship, troop ship; transport, catamaran; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... bad night was before them, and there were some on board the little privateer who thought they had better have remained inside the light-house of Cape May, than ventured out upon the sea. The heavy masses of black clouds which were piled on the edge of the distant horizon seemed gradually gathering nearer and nearer, as if to surround and ingulf the gallant vessel, which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... deus ex machina; and once in a while one of the few ships of war of the Continental navy, or some of the galleys or gunboats of Commodore Hazelwood's Pennsylvania State defence fleet. But the approaching ship was evidently neither a privateer nor a vessel of war, neither did she present the appearance of a peaceful merchantman. There was something curious and noteworthy in her aspect which excited the attention of the port warden, and ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... vessels of the said subjects or inhabitants of either of the parties, sailing along the coasts or on the high seas, are met by a vessel of war, or privateer, or other armed vessel (p. 083) of the other party, the said vessels of war, privateers, or armed vessels, for avoiding all disorder, shall remain without the reach of cannon, but may send their boats on board the merchant ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... after I was born. Then I was placed on a tombstone, by way of encouragement; after which, they sent me to live among paupers. I ran away at ten years old, and went to sea, where I've played the part of man-of-war's-man, privateer's-man, smuggler, mate, master, and all hands; everything, in short, but a pirate and mutineer. I've been a bloody hermit, Mr. Van Tassel, and if that won't take the resemblance to anything human ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... whispered, 'Bilked!' as she turned to run down the staircase. She would never see Torpenhow any more, but she had at least done harm to the man who had come between her and her desire and who used to make fun of her. Cashing the check was the very cream of the jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed across the Thames, to be swallowed up in ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... upon the ship, but she sailed steadily on; and in half an hour the sails were again hoisted and the Trois Freres proceeded on her way. She passed comparatively near several merchantmen, but these paid no attention to her. She was too small for a privateer, and her object and destination were easily guessed at. The girls soon came on deck, and the captain had some cushions placed for them under shelter of the bulwark; for although the sun was shining brightly the ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... from the first, the relations with the French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid, and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Penobscot factory was away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the English at a disadvantage forced them to ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... she had taken some minor part; of seeing that slim terror glide down by Callender House for a safe escape through the blockading fleet to the high seas and a world-wide fame; of Flora's towboat privateer sending in one large but empty prize whose sale did not pay expenses, and then being itself captured by the blockaders; of "Hamlet" given by amateurs at the St. Charles Theatre; of great distress among the poor, all sorts of gayeties for ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... enormously valuable prize, the Madre de Dios, in another; gave the warning which enabled Lord Thomas Howard to escape, but which Sir Richard Grenville refused to take "at Flores, in the Azores"; and built at his own expense, the largest privateer then or perhaps ever constructed, the Malice Scourge—for the remarkable subsequent history of which, see Mr. David Hannay's article, "The Saga of a Ship," in ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... sufficiently healed to induce a second attempt on vessels under the British flag, though a constant state of warfare was still kept up against the small craft of the gulf. In 1804, the East India Company's cruiser, Fly, was taken by a French privateer, off the Island of Kenn, in the Persian Gulf; but before the enemy boarded her, she ran into shoal water, near that island, and sunk the government dispatches, and some treasure with which they were charged, in about two and a half fathoms ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... times, that the only way to serve the nation was plundering the Spaniards, seems to have got the better of his desire to find out unknown countries; and made him choose to be known to posterity rather as a gallant privateer than as an able seaman, though ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... and judgment to direct. The war, methinks, has made Our wit and learning narrow as our trade; Instead of boldly sailing far, to buy A stock of wisdom and philosophy, We fondly stay at home, in fear Of every censuring privateer; Forcing a wretched trade by beating down the sale, And selling basely by retail. The wits, I mean the atheists of the age, Who fain would rule the pulpit, as they do the stage, Wondrous refiners of philosophy, Of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... there is that man in the house who can bring up a parcel of women when they have got headway on them, until theyve run out the end of their rope, his name is not Benjamin Pump. But Miss Betsey here must have altered more than a privateer in disguise, since she has got on her womans duds, if she will take offence with an old fellow for the small matter ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... deeds, young Wessel implored the King, before he had yet worn out his first midshipman's jacket, to give him command of a frigate. He compromised on a small privateer, the Ormen, but with it he did such execution in Swedish waters and earned such renown as a dauntless sailor and a bold scout whose information about the enemy was always first and best, that before spring they gave him a frigate with eighteen ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... land, and they had to anchor to wait for a turn of the tide to help them in. In this situation, they were soon very much alarmed by the appearance of a vessel in the offing, which was coming also toward the shore. They thought it was a Spanish privateer, and its appearance brought a double apprehension. There was danger that the privateer would capture them, France and Spain being then at war. There was danger, also, that the master of their vessel, afraid himself of being captured, might insist on making all haste ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, April 1, 1656:—A complaint in behalf of Thomas Bussel, Richard Beare, and other English merchants. A ship of theirs, called The Edmund and John, on her voyage from Brazil to Lisbon, was seized long ago by a privateer of Flushing, commanded by a Lambert Bartelson. The ship itself and the personal property of the sailors had been restored; but not the goods of the merchants. The Judges in Holland had not done justice in their case; and now, after long litigation, an ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... opposite Whitehall. Years had rolled on, but the Quaker mate who had so materially assisted the flying prince—by keeping the secret—arranging the escape with the crew, and when, in fear of danger from a privateer, rowing the prince ashore, and in shoal water carrying him on his shoulders to the land, near the village of Fecamp, in Normandy, yet he had not been with the king to claim any reward. This escape took place in 1651, and nearly twenty ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... English pirates, with whom she afterwards enjoyed the benefit of a royal proclamation pardoning all pirates who submitted within a limited period. Their money gave out, and they enlisted under a privateer captain to cruise against the Spaniards; but the men, finding a favorable opportunity, took the vessel from the officers, and commenced their old trade. Mary was as brave as any in boarding Spanish craft, pistol in hand, to clear the decks; no peril made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... farce "The Repulse of Vicksburg" into a tragedy for the Copperheads, taking that stronghold on July 4th, and Captain Winslow, with the Union man-of-war Kearsarge, meeting the Confederate privateer Alabama, off the coast of France, near Cherbourg, fought the famous ship to a finish and sunk her. Thus the tragedy of "The Army of the Potomac" was given after all, and Playwright Stanton and Composer Welles were vindicated, their compositions ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... supposed by Mr. Lloyd that this place was situated between Virginia and Florida. It is farther said by this Gentleman, that one Oliver Humphreys, a Merchant, who died, not long before the Date of this Letter, told him, that when he lived at Surinam, he spoke with an English Privateer or Pirate, who being near Florida a careening his Vessel, had learnt, as he thought the Indian Language, which his Friend said was perfect Welsh. "My Brother, Mr. Lloyd adds, having heard this, (Mr. Jones's Adventures) ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... sailed with Colombo el Mozo (the nephew of that "first Admiral of the family" of whom we have already heard) on a cruise to intercept some Venetian merchantmen on their way home from Flanders. At break of day the battle began, off Cape St. Vincent, and lasted till nightfall. The privateer commanded by Columbus grappled a huge Venetian galley, which, after a hand-to-hand struggle, caught fire, and the flames spread to the privateer. Friends and enemies alike sought safety in the sea, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... adventure of Dr Burton's unadventurous life occurred when he was returning with his parents from Jersey, in a troop-ship. The vessel was chased by a French privateer, and for some time the little family had reason to fear becoming inmates of a French prison. It was this incident which Dr Burton used in his later life to say entitled him to assert that he had been in the Peninsular War. The homeward journey from Jersey was to Aberdeen, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... French prisoner—on parole. That means he's promised not to escape till he has been properly exchanged for an Englishman. He's only a doctor, so I hope they won't think him worth exchanging. My uncle captured him last year in the FERDINAND privateer, off Belle Isle, and he cured my uncle of a r-r-raging toothache. Of course, after that we couldn't let him lie among the common French prisoners at Rye, and so he stays with us. He's of very old family—a Breton, which is nearly next door ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three fortunate cruises, and was able at the peace to purchase a prize-brig, which he sailed, as master and owner, until the year 1790, when he was recalled to the paternal roof by the death of my grandfather. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... an anecdote about a Quaker. At one time, he said, in the days of his youth, the late famous admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had been mate on a ship commanded by a Quaker; and on one occasion the ship was attacked by a French privateer. What, then, did the Quaker captain do? Instead of fighting the privateer himself, he gave over the command to Wager, captured the privateer, and made his fortune. But the Brethren, he held, were even broader minded ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... (for after this I went there no more) I was attacked by a band of men, who had disguised themselves, and disembarked from a Moorish privateer. When they thought that they had run me into a certain passage, where it seemed impossible that I should escape from their hands, I suddenly mounted my pony, resolved to be roasted or boiled alive at that pass ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... initiative, and decides practically it is a struggle of two sides, just as the country commenced to develop its power to cope with the rebellion. It considered the South a marine power before it had exhibited a single privateer on the ocean. The Greeks at the time of recognition had 'covered the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... seamen on the seas. Merchantmen were stopped at sea, robbed of their able sailors, and left to limp short-handed into port. A British East Indiaman homeward bound in 1802 was stripped of so many of her crew in the Bay of Biscay that she was unable to offer resistance to a French privateer and fell a rich victim into the hands of the enemy. The necessity of the royal navy knew no law and often defeated its ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... joined the Union Navy. Went on board our convoy, the Nereus. We convoyed to keep the Alabama, a Confederate privateer, away. The Commander of the Nereus asked me how's I like to be his cabin boy. So I was 2nd class cabin boy an' waited on the Captain. He was Five Stripe Commander J. C. Howell. He was Commander of the whole fleet off Fort Fisher. When the Captain wanted somethin' good to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... States. Its orders, generally, were to defend from molestation by a foreign armed ship all vessels of the United States within the marine league, seaward, to which neutral jurisdiction was conceded by international law. Force was to be used, if necessary, and, if the offender were a privateer, or piratical, she was to be sent in. So weak and unready was the nominal naval force of the United States, that piracy near her very shores was apprehended; and concern was expressed in Congress ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... commencement of the Revolutionary War, the family of a Dr. Channing, being in England, removed to France, and shortly afterwards sailed for the United States. The vessel, said to be stout and well armed, was attacked on the voyage by a privateer, and a fierce engagement ensued. During its continuance, Mrs. Channing stood on the deck, exhorting the crew not to give up, encouraging them with words of cheer, handing them cartridges and aiding such of them as were disabled by wounds. When at length the colors of the vessel ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... before embarking, he dreamt that on his way to the harbour he crossed the churchyard and fell into an open grave. Telling this to his parents at "The Pollet," they would not let him go, with a sort of superstitious wisdom; for, strangely enough, the smack was seized on its voyage by a privateer, and all the crew and passengers were consigned—for twelve years—to a French prison! I have heard my father tell this tale, and noted early how true was Dr. Watts' awkward line, "On little things what great depend." I might say more about warnings in ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... son, was born in Nice, July 4, 1807. In youth he went to sea. In 1834 he took part with Mazzini in the Young Italy demonstrations, and for aiding in an attempt to seize Genoa he was condemned to death. Escaping to South America, he won distinction as a guerilla leader and a privateer in the service of the Rio Grande rebels against Brazil. After further military adventures in South America, he returned to Italy, and in 1847 offered his services to Pope Pius IX, but they were not accepted. In 1848 he received indifferent treatment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the mails and passengers were consigned, were built for fighting purposes. It was no uncommon thing for them to fall into the hands of an enemy; but they did not always succumb without doing battle, and sometimes they had the honours of the day. In 1793 the Antelope packet fought a privateer off the coast of Cuba and captured it, after 49 of the 65 men the privateer carried had been killed or disabled. The Antelope had only two killed and three wounded—one mortally. In 1803 the Lady Hobart, a vessel of 200 tons, sailing from Nova Scotia for England, fell in with and captured a French ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... and were assisted in preparing themselves by his wife and daughter, who blackened their faces with burnt cork. He was a confidential messenger between Governor Hancock and Washington, and was afterwards a prisoner of war, having been taken in a privateer, in 1781. He was an early member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and was also a member of the Massachusetts Lodge of Freemasons in 1792. His son, Thomas, a member of the City Council of Boston in 1825-26, died June 4, ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... had reveled in blood-and-thunder tales that made the drowsy schoolroom fade before the vast wilderness, the scene of breathless struggles between Indian and settler, or open into the high seas where pirate, or worse-than-pirate Britisher, struck flag to American privateer ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... cruisers were driven off the sea, the privateers continued the naval war. At that time a merchantman could be turned into a capable fighting ship by adding strengthening timbers and providing the necessary guns. Such a ship, when commissioned as a privateer by the United States government, could capture the enemy's merchantmen and on occasion fight small cruisers. For instance, the brig Yankee, 160 tons burden, eighteen guns, 120 men, captured twenty-nine prizes, one of which sold for more than $500,000. The money was divided ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... account of the north sea, whither Captain Gillam was to go for the Fur Company, and whither, too, Master Ben was keen to sail, "a pirateer, along o' his own risk and gain," explained the mate with a wink, "pirateer or privateer, call 'em what you will, Mister; the Susan with white sails in Boston Town, and Le Bon Garcon with sails black as the devil himself up in Quebec, ha—ha—and I'll give ye odds on it, Mister, the devil himself don't catch Master Ben! Why, bless you, gentlemen, who's to jail 'im here ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... for when I was twenty and Mary eighteen, I'm blest if news did not arrive that Captain Waters, who was coming home to England with all his money in rupees, had been taken—ship, rupees, self and all—by a French privateer; and Mary, instead of 10,000L. had only 5,000L., making a difference of no less than 350L. per annum betwixt ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... affairs. My chief clerk, Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an old file, and knows 'Change as well as any man in London. Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him. He's been dabbling on his own account I fear. They say the Jeune Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee privateer Molasses. And that's flat—unless I see Amelia's ten thousand down you don't marry her. I'll have no lame duck's daughter in my family. Pass the wine, sir—or ring ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ship that had been allowed to sail so leisurely into Carlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, coming to pay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren of the Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasure galleons bound for Cadiz. It happened that the galleon which escaped in a ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... and 1672 with Holland added much to the distress in Virginia. The bold Dutch mariners, angered at the injury done them by the Navigation Acts, preyed upon the English merchantmen in every sea. Woe to the tobacco ship that encountered a hostile privateer, in its journey across the Atlantic! The English vessels were not safe even in the Virginia rivers, under the guns of their forts. Twice the daring Dutch came through the capes and into the James River itself, where they wrought great damage ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the "Lady Susan," "an armed vessel, was taken by Captain Barry at sea," reported Caesar Rodney to his brother at Dover the next day. This was "a privateer of eight four-pound carriage guns commanded by another of those famous Goodriches of Virginia." She was loaded with naval stores from Bermuda. After an "obstinate engagement" of an hour and a half "she struck." Nearly all of her crew of twenty-five ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... 1650, the Spaniards were by no means passive or indifferent to the attacks made upon their authority and prestige in the New World. The hostility of the mariners from the north they repaid with interest, and woe to the foreign interloper or privateer who fell into their clutches. When Henry II. of France in 1557 issued an order that Spanish prisoners be condemned to the galleys, the Spanish government retaliated by commanding its sea-captains to mete ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... combination for a common purpose were used nearly two hundred years before the Declaration of Independence; second, that stars were used in the union of a flag in November, 1775, on a flag raised on a Massachusetts privateer commanded by Captain Manley (see Fig. 1), and that they were also used in the design of the book plate of the Washington family along with ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... flickered out without any pain, so the Abbe Gauthier wrote over to Mr. Esmond, then with his general on the frontier of France. The Lady Castlewood was with her at her ending, and had written too, but these letters must have been taken by a privateer in the packet that brought them; for Esmond knew nothing of their contents ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ships—one was going a trading voyage to the coast of Africa, and the other a-privateering. I was now in a dilemma, and was willing to have a share in the trader, but was dubious of being concerned in the privateer; for I had heard strange stories told of the gentlemen concerned in that way of business. Nay, I had been told, but with what certainty I cannot aver, that there was a set of men who took upon them to issue ships, and as they always knew to what port they are bound, notice was sent ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government. They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not hinted in any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary occurrence in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... news never reached the prince. His Irish friends urged him on; "the expedition was entirely an Irish project." He borrowed money from his bankers, the Waters, he pawned his share of the Sobieski jewels, and, with a privateer man-of-war and a brig, La Doutelle, he left Belleisle on July 13, 1745. Neither the French court nor his father knew that, attended only by seven men, "The Seven Men of Moidart," he had set out to seek ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... found that the prize was the Culloden, an English ship homeward-bound, which had been captured by a French privateer, and was on her way to the Mauritius. Her officers, with most of the English crew, had been removed on ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... well guided and well sailed. The shape of her hull, her rigging, her sails, denoted her to be a ship-of-war, or at the least a privateer. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... men; but his lid drooped so, you'd hardly know 'twas missing. He'd a way, too, of talking to himself as he went along, so that folks reckoned him silly. It was queer how that maggot stuck in their heads; for in handling a privateer or a Guernsey cargo—sink the or run it straight—there wasn't his master in Polperro. The very ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... for the worse, from the established course of proceeding is proposed. It then occurred to Bellamont that his favourite scheme might be carried into effect without any cost to the state. A few public spirited men might easily fit out a privateer which would soon make the Arabian Gulph and the Bay of Bengal secure highways for trade. He wrote to his friends in England imploring, remonstrating, complaining of their lamentable want of public spirit. Six thousand ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sails of the English cruisers as they sailed up or down the channel were clearly visible, and occasionally a privateer could be seen making its way westward with a prize it had picked up off Texel. Military and naval matters were the sole topics of conversation, and by the time he was fifteen Ralph had fully determined to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and to become a soldier. Having passed almost all her ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... just about to tell you," answered Cecil. "A privateer on the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, in those days, was a man who had sufficient money or sufficient reputation to secure a ship and a crew with which to wage war against the enemies of his country. As his own government ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... life, when, at last, the humbling and compelling pinch of poverty had turned him to "overhead guerrilla" work and the dangers and vicissitudes of a poolroom key-operator. He recalled his chance meeting with MacNutt, the wire-tapper, and their partnership of privateer forces in that strange campaign against Penfield, the alert and opulent poolroom king, who had seemed always able to defy the efforts and offices of a combative and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... all the state executives were Federalists and were arrayed against the administration. The Republicans kept their hold upon the minority, partly by the diversion of the capital, thrown out of the carrying trade, into privateer ventures, war supplies, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... battle between the Spanish and the Dutch fleets, but also of Van Noordt's entire voyage to the Philippines. The battle ends, on the whole, disastrously for Van Noordt. Among the plunder found on the Dutch ships is a commission granted to Esaias de Lende as a privateer against the Spaniards in the Indias. Suit being brought against the admiral Alcega for deserting the flagship in the battle with Van Noordt, Morga presents therein his version of the affair (January 5, 1601)—throwing the blame for the loss of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... him under, and it will cost as much to hold him down as it did to get him down. Then comes the summer, and the fever will drive our soldiers home; next winter, we must begin at the beginning, and conquer him over again. What use, then, to take a fort, or a privateer, or get possession of an inlet, or to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... an apothecary could pursue his business only by killing nine persons out of ten of those with whom he had dealing, who would deem it a lawful business? If a man can get a living in his employment only by fitting out a privateer and preying upon the peaceful commerce of the world, who will deem it a lawful employment? If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes of Africa, and to tear away parents from ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, 'fought like a philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and fired.' As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether Christians ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... quiet neighbourhood which seemed to have been forgotten by the police, he turned down a narrow lane and looked out for a subject, as a privateer might search among "narrows" for a prize. He did not search long. An old lady soon hove in sight. She seemed a suitable old lady, well-dressed, little, gentle, white-haired, a tottering ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... seemed like a sacrilege now, when he reflected how he had trained the gun of the old Maggie on her that day off the Coronados, and it seemed to him now even a greater sacrilege to have brazenly planned to enter her as a privateer in the struggles of the republic of Colombia. The past tense is used advisedly, for that project was now entirely off, much to the secret delight of Captain Scraggs, who, if the hero of one naval engagement, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... practically closed the year's naval events upon the ocean. The British privateer "Dart" was captured near Newport by some volunteers from the gunboats stationed at that point. But, with this exception, nothing noteworthy in naval circles occurred during the remainder of the year. Looking back over the annals of the naval operations of 1813, it is clear that the Americans were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... extended period. Gay speaks of a curious case in which the point of a sheath-knife remained in the back of an individual for nine years. Bush reported to Sir Astley Cooper the history of a man who, as he supposed, received a wound in the back by canister shot while serving on a Tartar privateer in 1779. There was no ship-surgeon on board, and in about a month the wound healed without surgical assistance. The man suffered little inconvenience and performed his duties as a seaman, and was impressed into the Royal Navy. In August, 1810, he complained of pain in the lumbar region. He was submitted ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... burning hatred of England, even before the Revolution broke out, and, in conjunction with a friend, gave a practical illustration of his hostility by fitting out a privateer at Brest, which was designed to intercept British ships trading to the West Indies; and as we do not remember to have seen this strange incident in his life mentioned elsewhere, we shall give the short account of it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did no one of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic, if you can't help me.[74] My application to Scribner has been quite in vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... King William's war, Captain Kid commanded a privateer in the West Indies, and by several adventurous actions acquired the reputation of a brave man, as well as an experienced seaman. About this time the pirates were very troublesome in those parts, wherefore ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted or entered, in the service of any foreign state, either as a soldier or as a marine or seaman on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or privateer. And these enactments are also in strict conformity with the law of nations, which declares that no state has the right to raise troops for land or sea service in another state without its consent, and that, whether forbidden by the municipal law or not, the very attempt ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... this; and promised to leave him to the attacks of the little privateer, without falling foul of him with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... extraordinary spread of canvas, her spray-swept hull disclosing an armament of thirty guns, the decks swarming with men. She was no merchant ship, this was already clear, but there was still the hope that she might be a man-of-war or a privateer. Captain Wellsby looked in vain for her colors. At length he saw a flag whip from the spanker gaff. He laid down the glass with a ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... be accused of having a suspect, probably one of the emigres hidden here, and it would be difficult for me to explain your reception. You must, in the first place, attire yourself in clothes such as are worn by the mate of a privateer. I suppose you have papers, or you would not have ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... away in memory this all comes back to me pure and fresh, but on that morning I gave it no heed. From the heights I passed along through quiet streets into the lower town, thence to the beach, where I was soon inquiring among the sailors for the privateer. These women looked askance at me, and regarded my unfamiliar uniform with suspicion, but after great difficulty one of their number was induced to carry me alongside an ominous looking craft lying in the harbor—a black-hulled brig of probably ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... followed it, the fortune of a French privateer is told. The scene is laid in the Mediterranean, and the time is the end of the last century. Though inferior in power to some of his other sea-stories, it is far from being a poor novel; and it was, in fact, one of the author's ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... "We can thank the privateer for this. Still it was a fair profit and wisely expended, wiser to my mind than the methods of Robert Morris. At any rate it is ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... to place the shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe upon the eastern side of the American continent. Now, not only was this in direct opposition to the realities of the case upon which he built, as first reported (I believe) by Woodes Rogers, from the log book of the Duke and Duchess,—(a privateer fitted out, to the best of my remembrance, by the Bristol merchants, two or three years before the peace of Utrecht,) and so far the mind of any man acquainted with these circumstances was staggered, in attempting to associate ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of convoy fees and licenses to trade. It must be confessed that a portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail to be levied on friend and foe; for the distinctions between, freebooter, privateer, pirate, and legitimate sea-robber were not very closely drawn in those early days ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been strengthened to bear myself after the manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... lugger borrowed from a boat-builder, but while they are out, there is a violent change in the weather, with the wind reversing and increasing to a point in which the lugger is swamped, and about to sink. They are picked up by a passing vessel, which turns out to be a privateer, and her captain refuses to waste time by landing them. So they are found positions in the crew, and take part in the subsequent events. They do battle with a Spanish vessel, loot her, and let her go. Then they arrive at Cartagena in the West Indies, where they also ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... inlet, he journeyed overland to Bath; there he signed pledges, took oaths, and did everything that was necessary to change himself from a pirate captain to a respectable commander of a duly authorized British privateer. Returning to his vessel with all the papers in his pocket necessary to prove that he was a loyal and law-abiding subject of Great Britain, he took out regular clearance papers for St. Thomas, which was a British naval station, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... admitted themselves to be slow to change their habits, but the French were both quick and scientific; yet Americans did on the ocean what the French, under stronger inducements, failed to do. The French privateer preyed upon British commerce for twenty years without seriously injuring it; but no sooner did the American privateer sail from French ports than the rates of insurance doubled in London, and an outcry for protection arose among English shippers which the Admiralty could not calm. The British ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been expressly built by Messrs. Taggs & Co., a London firm, in reality as a privateer (which explains her raking masts), but ostensibly for the Portugal trade; and was homeward bound from Lisbon to the Thames, with a cargo of red wine and chestnuts. At Falmouth, where she had run in for a couple of days, on account of a damaged rudder, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Cowes pilot. He brought no news, but told us the English vessel I have just named was sixty days from Leghorn, and that she had been once a privateer. We were just thirty ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... regarded as pirates and the North would have no right to treat them as such, but if the North in defiance of international opinion did so treat them, Great Britain had at least warned its subjects that they, if engaged in service on a Southern privateer, had no claim to British protection; a blockade of the South to be respected must be effective at least to the point where a vessel attempting to pass through was likely to be captured; the plan of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... N.E. Next morning, being out of the channel, they perceived that the boat belonging to the vice-admiral was missing, in which were six men, which gave them considerable uneasiness, insomuch that they had some intention of returning to Plymouth in search of them. They met, however, with an English privateer, which soon made them alter their intentions; by assuring them that their men had run away with the boat, and could not be recovered, on which they resolved to proceed on their voyage. At this time considerable jealousies ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... be two vessels who regularly patroled the fishing grounds in the interest of French fisheries. If the captain of either of those vessels should have come out of the fog and found us, his share of the prize in money might have amounted to $4,000,000. Did privateer ever dream of ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... man-of-war.—All in the wind, when a vessel's head is too close to the wind, so that all her sails are shivering.—All over, resemblance to a particular object, as a ship in bad kelter: "she's a privateer all over."—All overish, the state of feeling when a man is neither ill nor well, restless in bed and indifferent to meals. In the tropics this is considered as the premonitory symptom of disease, and a warning which should be looked to.—All ready, the answer from the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... rejected the proposition with disdain, and told him the consequence of such a measure, in the event of being taken by a man-of-war of any nation,—that it was piracy, to all intents and purposes, according to the law of nations. We refused to go out in the privateer, if he persisted in this most nefarious act, and we heard no more of it while we lay ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the sauciest craft afloat, and though "sauce" was to the naval officer what a red rag is to a bull, there were few in the service who did not think twice before attempting to violate the armed sanctity of the privateer. At the same time the hands who crowded her deck were the flower of British seamen, and in this fact lay a tremendous incentive to dare all risks and press her men. Her commission or letter of marque of course protected her, but when she was inward-bound ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... though her sails were lowered her masts and hull stood out black against the moonlight. Here was a fresh reason for delay, for surely one must consider what this craft could be, and what had brought her here. She was too small for a privateer, too large for a fishing-smack, and could not be a revenue boat by her low freeboard in the waist; and 'twas a strange thing for a boat to cast anchor in the midst of Moonfleet Bay even on a night so fine as this. Then while I watched I saw a blue flare in the bows, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Royal Proclamation, the blockade of any one of the Northern ports by one of the ships of the Secessionists would be as lawful an act as the blockade of Charleston by a dozen of the Union's cruisers; and England allows that a privateer from Pensacola could seize an English ship that should be engaged in bringing arras to New York or Philadelphia. Thus are the two "parties" to the war placed on the same footing by the decision of the English Government, though the one party is a nation having treaties with England, and engaged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... action, one named Danas, or David, an English privateer, having treacherously hoisted French colors in the Streights of Fronsac, by means of a French deserter he had with him, decoyed on board his vessel the chief of the savages of Cape-Breton, called James Padanuque, with his whole family, whom he carried to Boston, where he was clapped into a dungeon ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... far, when my joyous hopes vanished. Two French mulattoes had, after much solicitation, and the most solemn promises to carry with them no articles which the laws of war decree to be contraband, obtained a passage in the vessel. She was speedily encountered by a privateer, by whom every receptacle was ransacked. In a chest, belonging to the Frenchmen, and which they had affirmed to contain nothing but their clothes, were found two sabres, and other accoutrements of an officer of cavalry. Under ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... wife, because I could not live with her, and, marry! I would prefer hanging to existence with her. I went to New York, where Captain Robert Kidd was beating up recruits to sail as a privateer in the Adventurer to protect commerce against the French privateers and sea-robbers. I enlisted and then, with one hundred and fifty men, Kidd did good service on the American coast, and we went to the Indian Ocean to attack pirates. Our plunder from the pirates made us long to ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... their great gray sides that were thirty foot in the sheer, When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... unloaded at night and marched thence to the plantations, like mules and cattle; with its Morro, connected by wells and traps with caves in the rock beneath, where bodies of men mysteriously done to death slipped away on the tide. A French privateer had appeared before the town, demanding ransom or surrender. Luckily for Santiago, a Spanish caravel had arrived a few days before, under command of Captain Diego Perez, and this gallant sailor offered to go out and ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... interest of the navy to the Southern Pacific. When the war began Admiral von Spee, with the German Pacific squadron, was at Kiaochau in command of seven vessels. Among these was the Emden, whose adventurous career has been already described. Another, the Karlsruhe, became a privateer in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Scottish. The chief parties to it, besides the old Marquis of Tullibardine and the young Duke of Perth, were the Waterses, father and son, Irish bankers at Paris, who advanced one hundred and eighty thousand livres between them; Walsh, an Irish merchant at Nantz, who put a privateer of eighteen guns into the venture; Sir Thomas Geraldine, the Pretender's agent at Paris; Sir Thomas Sheridan, the prince's preceptor, who, with Colonels O'Sullivan and Lynch, Captain O'Neil, and other officers of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee |
