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Hessian   Listen
noun
Hessian  n.  
1.
A native or inhabitant of Hesse.
2.
A mercenary or venal person. (U. S.) Note: This use is a relic of the patriot hatred of the Hessian mercenaries who served with the British troops in the Revolutionary War.
3.
pl. See Hessian boots and cloth, under Hessian, a.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hessian" Quotes from Famous Books



... very close of the campaign they bethought themselves of the fact that the strike had been broken by Negroes, and so they sent for a South Carolina fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, and damned and swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively, and the Socialists advertised it too—with the result that about a thousand of them were on hand that evening. The "pitchfork senator" stood their fusillade of questions for about an hour, and then went home in disgust, and the balance of the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... sheets an' rentin' signs in a sthreet-car to chewin' gum imporyums. If Gin'ral Washington iv sacred mimory 'd been under a good sthreet-car Sicrety iv War, he'd 've wore a bell punch to ring up ivry time he killed a Hessian. He wud so, an' they'd 've kep' tab on him, an', if he thried to wurruk a brother-in-law on thim, ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... smiling to myself in thinking that here was this British Admiral seated beside the American Secretary of the Navy—the American Secretary of the Navy being the grandnephew of Napoleon and the grandson of Jerome, King of Westphalia; while the British Admiral was the grandson of a Hessian general who was the subject of King Jerome and served under Napoleon, and then, by no means creditably, deserted him in the middle ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... and had the watch on deck, when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my notice; for I had never seen anything like it before, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... picturesque example in history of a trader's trust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trusting Christian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used to sell his subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with got rich at it; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind—$9,000,000. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Revolutionary soldiers; Lancaster sent Job Lewis, East Bridgewater Prince Richards. So did many other towns and States in this Commonwealth. Rhode Island raised a regiment which did signal service at Red Bank in completely routing the Hessian force under Colonel Donop, but it was not in distinctively colored regiments or companies that colored men chiefly fought in the Revolution; it was in the ranks of any and all regiments, and by the side of their white companions in arms they were mainly ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... so valuable as English, serges, tapestry, a very large quantity of linen and mercery, or small wares of all sorts: from Germany, Antwerp receives by land carriage, silver, bullion, quicksilver, immense quantities of copper, Hessian wool, very fine, glass, fustians of a high price, to the value of above 600,000 crowns annually; woad, madder, and other dye stuffs; saltpetre, great quantities of mercery, and household goods, very fine, and of excellent ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... hands, the weapons themselves feel and think. And so the family firelocks and rusty swords, the horse-pistol and old scythes of our fathers thought terribly at Lexington and Monmouth, at Saratoga and Eutaw Springs. The old Continental muskets thought out the whole Revolution. The English and Hessian arms were better and brighter than ours; but they were charged only with saltpetre. Our guns were loaded and rammed home ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... resigned a lucrative and honorable post, because he could not conscientiously give the sanction to the Hindoo idolatry required by the British authorities. And within the last few months, we have seen hundreds of Hessian officers throw up their commissions rather than trample on the constitution of their country. On the same principles the non-conformists in the time of Charles II. and the ministers of the Free Church of Scotland, in our day, gave up their stipends and their ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... disputed since his ancestors had driven Napoleon out to the battle of the Pyramids a century ago. I could not deny his statement as I had not been among those present, but I reduced the settlement to a compromise by threatening to spring on him the Hessian troops that De Cosson Bey retained for such occasions. Then we drove up to the house as genially as if we had been long parted relatives, and I supposed we held the secrets of the passage of arms between ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... him about his colonial relatives, who were very grand people, belonging to a little aristocratic circle of friends and relatives who were faithful to their king and their church. The Baroness Riedesel, wife of a Hessian officer who had been captured, was for a while resident in this house, and her name, scratched on a window-pane, was long shown as a sight for eyes unused to titles other than governor, judge, colonel, ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... are drawn largely from life in the Hessian, Bavarian, and Swiss Alps, where he has carefully studied the manners and customs of the people. The cottage interiors have all the characteristic quaintness and charm of these peasant homes. High wooden chairs, of the "fiddle-back" pattern, are the conspicuous ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... is thundering at the passes of the Hoosacs, only fifty miles away, and King George may get his red coat back again, after all. The Tories in the village say that the landlord keeps a pot of red paint behind the door, so that the Hessian dragoons may not take him by surprise when they come galloping down the valley, some afternoon. On the other side [of] the green is the meeting-house, built some thirty years ago, by a grant from government at ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... fresh additions of water must be repeated three or four times, merely for the purpose of washing away all traces of the liquor which was retained by the first precipitate, and which was formed by the first admixture of the two solutions. The precipitate, when well washed, is to be placed in a Hessian crucible, and exposed to a red heat for half an hour. A clear glass will be formed; which must be reduced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... have looked in those days, and what thoughts it must have suggested to men either ignorant of war or accustomed to pursue it in civilised countries, has been described by Macaulay in a passage which it were superfluous to quote and impertinent to paraphrase. Near sixty years later, when some Hessian troops were marching to the relief of Blair Castle, then besieged by the forces of Prince Charles, the stolid Germans turned from the desperate sight and, vowing that they had reached the limits of the world, marched resolutely back to Perth. The only road that then led ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... equals in colour any of the copper greens free from arsenic. The cheapest way of making it is to heat 59 parts of tin in a Hessian crucible with 100 parts nitrate of soda, and dissolve the mass when cold in a caustic alkali. To the clear solution, diluted with water, a cold solution of sulphate of copper is added: a reddish-yellow precipitate falls, which on ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... General Washington's staff, and afterwards member of Congress, where he had access to the official documents and letters from which he compiled his history, Mr. Bancroft makes the following statements and remarks: "The value of the spoil, which was distributed by English and Hessian commissaries of captures, amounted to about L300,000 sterling, so that the dividend of a major-general exceeded 4,000 guineas. There was no restraint on private rapine; the silver plate of the planters was carried off; all negroes that had belonged to the rebels were seized, even though they ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... with Count and Countess Goertz may be said to be a sort of inherited friendship, the count's father, president of the Hessian House of Lords, and his consort, a princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein, having been the most intimate friends of Emperor and Empress Frederick, whose acquaintance they made through the late Grand Duke and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... REPRESENTATION! and then, because in the spirit of our gallant fathers, we bravely opposed him, he broke up the very fountains of his malice, and let loose upon us every indescribable, unimaginable curse of CIVIL WAR; when British armies, with their Hessian, and Indian, and tory allies, overran my afflicted country, swallowing up its fruits and filling every part with consternation; when no thing was to be seen but flying crowds, burning houses, and young men, (alas! too often,) hanging upon ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... pitch, and for social entertainments had frequent sing-songs and "buck dances"—that is, dances in which there were no ladies to take part—at Faahan's Club Hotel in the town, some one and a half miles distant. "Hotel" was rather too high-class a name, for it was by no means an imposing structure, hessian and corrugated iron taking the place of the bricks and slates of a more civilised building. The addition of a weather-board front, which was subsequently erected, greatly enhanced its attractions. Mr. Faahan ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... for those men, but they were moved to graceful speech. We were hard put to it, because one had to tell them that much of the giving for a hundred years had been from France to us, and our showing in this war is hardly the equal of the aid they sent us when we were invaded by Hessian troops ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... in a timid, suppliant voice, "the elector dares to appeal to the generosity of your majesty. Marshal Mortier, with his forces, occupies Cassel and the Hessian states, and declares them to be French possessions. The elector and his crown-prince only escaped ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... of Red Bank, in which the black regiment bore a part, is among the proofs of their valor." In this contest it will be recollected, that four hundred men met and repulsed, after a terrible sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred Hessian troops, headed by count Donop." Ibid., p. 10. CONNECTICUT next claims to be heard and given credit on the nation's books. In speaking of the patriots who bore the standard of their country's glory, Judge Goddard, who held the office of ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... it's them. I'll warrant them's hard plums for a Christmas pudding. Ha! ha! they get it this morning,—them tarnation Hessian niggers!' ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... of industry and respectable character. He came out to this country as superintendant of convicts, at a salary of forty pounds per annum, and brought with him a daughter of twelve years old. He is by birth a Hessian, and served in America, in a corps of Yaghers, with the rank of lieutenant. He never was professionally, in any part of life, a farmer, but he told me, that his father owned a small estate on the banks of the Rhine, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... good understanding with the hotel management. A few doors further down a service club that had long been a Piccadilly landmark was a landmark still, as the home of the Army Aeronaut Club, and there was a constant coming and going of gay-hued uniforms, Saxon, Prussian, Bavarian, Hessian, and so forth, through its portals. The mastering of the air and the creation of a scientific aerial war fleet, second to none in the world, was an achievement of which the conquering race was pardonably proud, and for which it had good reason to be duly thankful. Over the gateways was ...
— When William Came • Saki

... the English general, John Burgoyne (1722-1792), was placed at the head of British and Hessian forces gathered for the invasion of the Colonies from Canada and the cutting off of New England from the rest of the Colonies. He gained possession of Ticonderoga and Ft. Edward; but pushing on, was cut off from his communications with Canada and ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... Hessian baron t' other night, Margarita," said Stephen's best boy-friend, Abram Van Vechten; "he never could play at Santa Claus. He's not the right shape at all. And then a Hessian! Why, I'd sooner have ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... The five Hessian regiments have surrounded the camp. Each commander has obeyed the master mind of his chief, who has calculated the time of marching with precision. Here, at the western gate, Colonel Blair's regiment is in open order. See the prisoners taking their places between the ranks, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Having sprung up to the height of at least six feet in his stockings, he had become remarkably thin and spare, and the first idea that struck you when you saw him was that he was all pantaloons; for he wore blue cotton net tight pantaloons, and his Hessian boots were so low, and his waistcoat so short, that there was at least four feet, out of the sum total of six, composed of blue cotton net, which fitted very close to a very spare figure. He wore no cravat, but a turn-down collar with a black ribbon, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... dangerous endings. Colonel Rahl, the Hessian commander at Trenton, was playing cards when a messenger brought a letter stating that Washington was crossing the Delaware. He put the letter in his pocket without reading it, until the game was finished. He rallied his men only to die just before his troops were taken prisoners. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... consisted of a curious-toned darkish green military tunic, heavily-frogged with gold, and with a wide, gold-braid collar. The buttons of the tunic were separate emeralds set in circles of diamonds, and enclosed in a wide circlet of gold. He wore white knee-breeches, and high Hessian boots, adorned at the heels with gold spurs. Over his shoulders, clasped at the neck with a large gold-and-precious-stone buckle of the same mysterious form as the hieroglyphic crest at the head of the Programs, he wore a wonderful burnouse of white and gold fleece, the gold predominating over ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... distinguished from the militia, which served in each case its particular Colony or State only—had experienced both defeats and victories in encounters with the King's troops and his allies, German, Hessian, and American Tory. It had endured the winter at Valley Forge while the British had fed, drunk, gambled, danced, flirted, and wenched in Philadelphia. The French alliance had been sanctioned. Steuben, Lafayette, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... that all hair powder is made of flour, but I did not use it like a Hessian. And I looked after her with an uncertain smile and with a respect born of ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... that time the firm friend of Nelson—describes him as appearing the merest boy of a captain he had ever seen, dressed in a full laced uniform, an old-fashioned waistcoat with long flaps, and his lank unpowdered hair tied in a stiff Hessian tail of extraordinary length; making altogether so remarkable a figure, that, says the duke, "I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what he came about. But his address and conversation were ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... have frustrated a policy agreeable to so many interests, namely, the existence of a national sentiment among the Germans themselves. But the peoples of Germany cared as little about a Fatherland as their princes. To the Hessian and the Bavarian at the centre of the Empire, Germany was scarcely more than it was to the Swiss or the Dutch, who had left the Empire centuries before. The inhabitants of the Rhenish Provinces had murmured for a while at the extortionate rule of the Directory; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... appeared, looking splendid in red tights and Hessian boots. He caught hold of two or three girls, changed their places, peeped to see if Montgomery was all right, and gave ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... towards Enghien. The enemy, perceiving the confederates were at their heels, proceeded to Gramont, passed the Lender, and took possession of a strong camp between Aeth and Oudenarde; William followed the same route, and encamped between Aeth and Leuse. While he continued in his post, the Hessian forces and those of Liege, amounting to about eighteen thousand men, separated from the army and passed the Meuse at Naimir; then the king returned to the Hague, leaving the command to prince Waldeck, who forthwith removed to Leuse, and on the twentieth day of the month began his march to Cambron. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... of the next year a splendid expedition set sail from St. Johns and swept proudly up Lake Champlain. Eight thousand British and Hessian troops, under strict discipline and ably officered, forty cannon of the best make, a horde of merciless Indians—with these forces General Burgoyne, the commander of the expedition, expected to make an easy conquest of upper New York, form a junction with Clinton at Albany, and, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... I found him pacing through the open doors of the dining-room and the library dictating to a secretary at a desk, now and then tossing a word to Dettermain and Newson's chief clerk. The floor was strewn with journals. He wore Hessian boots; a voluminous black cloak hung loosely from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... by Miss Fotheringay. "I think ye'll like Miss Fotheringay in Mrs. Haller, or me name's not Jack Costigan," observed the father of the actress. Bingley, we are told, was great in the character of the Stranger, and wore the tight pantaloons and Hessian boots which stage tradition has duly prescribed as the costume of that doleful personage. "Can't stand you in tights and Hessians, Bingley," young Mr. Foker had previously remarked. He had the stage jewellery on too, selecting "the largest and most shining rings for himself," ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... for the following year. The expenditure would be lessened by L104,000 on the navy (2,000 seamen being discharged), and about L50,000 on the army; L36,000 would also be saved by the non-renewal of the subsidy for Hessian troops. There were, however, additions, due to the establishment of the Government of Upper Canada, and the portions allotted to the Duke of York (on the occasion of his marriage with a Prussian princess) and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in the negative. But one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into distinction, by saying he had known him, and adding—'always wore Hessian boots!' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... "That infernal Hessian!" He stopped, and gazed questioningly into her face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was as sweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... necessary, then, to know what other insects are employed in holding them in check, by feeding on them. Some of our most formidable insects have been accidentally imported from Europe, such as the codling moth, asparagus beetle, cabbage butterfly, currant worm and borer, elm-tree beetle, hessian fly, etc.; but in nearly every instance these have come over without bringing their insect enemies with them, and in consequence they have spread more extensively here than in Europe. It was therefore urged that the Agricultural Department at Washington be requested ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... of Great Britain at last broken. Seven thousand English and Hessian soldiers and eight hundred and forty sailors laid down their arms ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... across on them to the Jersey shore. At times the ice bent so beneath the tread of the men that they momentarily expected to be submerged in the dark waters, but the dangerous crossing was safely made, the British and Hessian troops, spending the holiday hours in feasting and carousing at Trenton, were captured, and a great victory won ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... expressions of gratitude. They were the daughters of a university professor, who had gone with his wife and the domestic staff to the aid of one of their sisters, who had recently given birth in that part of the town where the fire was raging, and they had been alone when the Hessian soldiers arrived. One of these young ladies said to me with great emotion, "You are going into battle at a time when you have just saved our honour. God will reward you, you may be sure that no harm will come to you." The ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... of my free offering, you may be sure," he added. "But it so happened that Captain Falconnet once did me a like turn. I had chanced to run afoul of that captain of Hessian pigs, Lauswoulter, at cards, and Falconnet stood my friend—though now I bethink me, he did seem over-anxious that one or the other of us ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... of this Englishman as he appeared to the Kronstadt people on that day is not yet complete. His legs were encased in Hessian boots; his shooting-jacket was somewhat the worse for wear; and his hat, which had been eminently respectable at first starting, had acquired a sort of brigandish air; and to add to the drollery of his general appearance, the excellent ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... the contrary, is limited in her recruiting-grounds by modern political relations as respects Europe: she has formed an excellent foreign corps long ago in the Mediterranean; a Hessian corps in America; an admirable Hanoverian legion during the late war. But circumstances too often prevent her relying (as the Romans did) on the perfection of her military system so far as to dispense with ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Army.—Caution to the Negroes printed in a Williamsburg Paper.—The Virginia Convention answers the Proclamation of Lord Dunmore.—Gen. Greene, in a Letter to Gen. Washington, calls Attention to the raising of a Negro Regiment on Staten Island.—Letter from a Hessian Officer.—Connecticut Legislature on the Subject of Employment of Negroes as Soldiers.—Gen. Varnum's Letter to Gen. Washington, suggesting the Employment of Negroes, sent to Gov. Cooke.—The Governor refers Varnum's Letter ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... Revolution was much greater than that of La Fayette. Steuben had served on the staff of Frederick the Great and was distinguished for his wit and his polished manners. There was in him nothing of the needy adventurer. The sale of Hessian and other troops to the British by greedy German princes was met in some circles in Germany by a keen desire to aid the cause of the young republic. Steuben, who held a lucrative post, became convinced, while on a visit to Paris, that he could ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... a Hessian, born about 1495, wno went to Riga in his youth, and there worked and suffered in the cause of the new Lutheranism. The Prodigal Son preaches the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith. The selection ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... to climes far distant, Situate under Arctic skies, Call on Hessian troops assistant, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge

... the plant assigned to it by nature as its possession has preceded it. For many years after the colonization of the United States, few or none of the insects which attack wheat in its different stages of growth, were known in America. During the Revolutionary war, the Hessian fly, Cecidomyia destructrix, made its appearance, and it was so called because it was first observed in the year when the Hessian troops were brought over, and was popularly supposed to have been accidentally imported by those unwelcome strangers. Other destroyers of cereal ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... time she had seen that khaki hat, long, threadbare frock-coat, huge Hessian boots and red neckcloth was at Brinkwort's Farm. The last time she had seen that malevolent face was when its owner was marched away ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... countrymen in the last century. On the 6th his majesty's ships Diamond, Ambuscade, and Unicorn, with a fleet of transports, consisting of sixty-two sail, bound to America, with the last division of the Hessian troops, and some horse, were forced into the Sound by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... step near and stopped again, for behold the leafy screen was parted suddenly, and Barnabas beheld two boots—large boots they were but of exquisite shape—boots that strode strongly and planted themselves masterfully; Hessian boots, elegant, glossy and betasselled. Glancing higher, he observed a coat of a bottle-green, high-collared, close-fitting and silver-buttoned; a coat that served but to make more apparent the broad chest, powerful shoulders, and lithe waist of its wearer. Indeed a truly marvellous ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... life furthest forward I do not forget the very similar conditions, allowing for the absence of enemy machine-guns and snipers, which prevailed at Battalion Headquarters. Confined to a dug-out (a smaller replica of Regina) in Hessian Trench, with a continual stream of reports to receive and instructions to send out, and being continually rung up on the telephone, Colonel Bellamy and Cuthbert had their hands full, and opportunities for rest, if not for refreshment, were very limited. Nor do ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... of works was thrown up, the flanks of which rested upon Wallabout Bay and Gowanus Cove, two indentations in the shores of Long Island. These Washington manned with nine thousand of the eighteen thousand men under his command. By the arrival of three divisions of Hessian troops, Howe's army now numbered over thirty-four thousand men, to which Clinton brought three thousand more from ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... campagne de toutes les puissances de l'Europe, (traduit par Maze; Ire partie, Artillerie Anglaise.) Jacobi. (Six other parts have been published in German, containing descriptions of the French, Belgian, Hessian, Wirtemburg, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... as the Newburgh one, and they haven't any such Hessian boots, though it does have a secret staircase and chamber," answered Jim who, also, was greatly interested in the ancient building. "But come on, Janie; they're getting ready ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... and other trees; and this weeping habit is sometimes inherited, though in a singularly capricious manner. In the Lombardy poplar, and in certain fastigate or pyramidal varieties of thorns, junipers, oaks, &c., we have an opposite kind of growth. The Hessian oak,[761] which is famous from its fastigate habit and size, bears hardly any resemblance in general appearance to a common oak; "its acorns are not sure to produce plants of the same habit; some, however, turn out the same as the parent-tree." Another fastigate oak is said to ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... the Caribees did as good marching as the regulars, who came behind us. Dear old Mick, with his brogue and his blarney, has won every heart in the regiment, and you may be sure we shall see the whites of the enemy's eyes under him, which we never should have done under that odious Hessian, Oswald—in hospital now, thank Heaven—though some time, when I tell you the story, you will see that in this, as in most other things, Heaven helps those who help themselves. Taps will sound in five minutes, and I can only add that I am in good health, glorious spirits, and unshaken ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... of men—a few still in breeches with Hessian boots, which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers—were seated in the shadow of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural impulse, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... field of Monmouth Flashed the guns of Greene and Wayne. Fiercely roared the tide of battle, Thick the sward was heaped with slain. Foremost, facing death and danger, Hessian, horse, and grenadier, In the vanguard, fiercely fighting, Stood an ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... of the Hessian hirelings who had been brought over by the British settled in America. They usually became farmers, although some of the officers taught school. They joined the German settlements, avoiding the English-speaking communities in the United States because of the resentment shown towards them. Their ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... bodice, closely studded with dark blue beads, a flounced petticoat of indigo and amber foulard, an amber scarf drawn tightly round the hips, and a dark blue toque with a largo bunch of amber poppies. Tan-coloured mousquetaire gloves, and Hessian boots of tan-coloured kid.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... resist him in the Northern counties. Even after the King and Government were alarmed by the news of the battle of Preston, a full month was allowed to pass before an army under General Wade arrived at Newcastle on the 29th of October. Dutch, Hessian, and English troops were ordered home from Flanders and regiments were raised in the country, though at first no one seems to have seriously believed in anything so daring as an invasion of England by Prince Charles and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... a hessian tent in "th' Westren," with so many old mates from the East that it was just old times over again. We had five pounds of corned beef and a kerosene-tin to boil it in; and while we were talking of old things the skeleton of a kangaroo-dog grabbed the beef out of the boiling water and ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... eminent financiers, loyalty is no more than devotion to the opportunity of making the highest profit. If circumstances shift this from the side of their enlistment to that of an adversary, their arms and hearts go where their pockets lead. It must be remembered that the Hessian who "down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and proper gentleman, prompt to knock ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling through the cedar wood above St George's, when a dark good—looking man passed us; he was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a blue frock—coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a round hat. On passing he touched his hat with much grace, and in the evening I met him in society. It was Commodore Decatur. He was very much a Frenchman in manner, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... inverted dry t.t. or receiver over the flame of a burning candle, and look for any moisture (H2O). What two elements are shown by these experiments to exist in the candle? The same two are found in wood and in gas. Experiment 29.—Put into a small Hessian crucible (Fig. 18) some pieces of wood 2 or 3 cm long, cover with sand, and heat the crucible strongly. When smoking stops, cool the crucible, remove the contents, and examine the charcoal. The gases have been driven off from the wood, ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... rapidly disappear. England was preparing new and much larger forces. She was vexed, but not discouraged, having unlimited resources for war,—money, credit, and military experience. She proceeded to hire the services of seventeen thousand Hessian and other German troops. All Europe looked upon the contest as hopeless on the part of a scattered population, without credit, or money, or military stores, or a settled army, or experienced generals, or a central power. Washington ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... stand at a point across the Delaware River opposite Trenton. He seized all the boats on the river and when Lord Cornwallis marched into Trenton, there were no boats for his troops and they could not cross the river to attack the Americans. Leaving Hessian troops to guard Trenton, Cornwallis withdrew to wait until ice should bridge the river for him. These German—or Hessian—soldiers were hated by the Americans on account of their cruelty and because they ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... a thin, stately man, always dressed in hessian boots and the old-fashioned shirt-frill. A proud, impassive countenance was his, but it darkened now. "I will not act," he began. "I beg to state my opinion that the will is ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... night-dews and the blistering sun; The red-cross banner shades its captor's bust, Its folds still loaded with the conflict's dust; The drum, suspended by its tattered marge, Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's charge; The stars have floated from Britannia's mast, The redcoat's trumpets ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... still to be employed to bring back the Colonists to their obedience. The circumstance of their being subjects of our sovereign in his other character of Elector of Hanover, clearly distinguished it from the hiring of the Hessian and Brunswick mercenaries, which has been deservedly condemned. And, as the entire number fell short of two thousand,[55] Lord Shelburne's expression of fear for the liberties and religion of Englishmen was an absurd exaggeration. Moreover, the warm approval which, less ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... by right, In the cradle of our soldier race, After one good stand-up fight. My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, And fighting was not his trade; But his rusty pike's in the cabin still, With Hessian blood on the blade." "Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great When the word was 'Clear the way!' We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight— Kelly and Burke and Shea." "Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!" Said ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... distinguished man, of many military and other experiences; much about Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.] Introduces strangers, &c.; Bouille took him for "Head Chamberlain," four or five years after this. He is ten years the King's junior; a Hessian gentleman;—eldest Brother of the Envoy Gortz who in his cloak of darkness did such diplomacies in the Bavarian matter, January gone a year, and who is a rising man in that line ever since. But let Fromme begin:—[Anekdoten ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle

... as he completed his toilet by pulling on a pair of Hessian boots, that the man brought him in place of the solitary one which he remembered having on in the boat, "I wish we had been picked up by an English ship, although these chaps have been very kind, of course, and beggars mustn't ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... brought a few things which he wishes he had left behind. The Hessian fly, the wire-worm, the flea, and grubs and scale insects thrive mischievously. The black and grey rats have driven the native rat into the recesses of the forest. A score of weeds have come, mixed with badly-screened grass-seed, or in any of a hundred other ways. The ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... king in England or elsewhere, or whether there is any king at all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief or a Hessian hussar for a king, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about,—be that to themselves; but with respect to the doctrine, so far as it relates to the rights of men and nations, it is as abominable as anything ever uttered in the most enslaved country under ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Hessian Boy. Was discovered by hunters in 1341, running on all fours with wolves; was captured and turned over to the landgrave. Was always restless, could not adapt himself to civilized life, and died untamed. The case is recorded in the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... good doctor, and his father, Joseph Marryat of Wimbledon House, was an M.P., chairman for the committee of Lloyd's, and colonial agent for the island of Grenada—a substantial man, who refused a baronetcy, and was honoured by an elegy from Campbell. He married Charlotte Geyer, or Von Geyer, a Hessian ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Grayson. "Look there." He pointed over the treetops that they had now risen above to where columns of Royal Highlanders and Hessian Yagers were hastening forward at double-quick. "You would have had a sharp skimper-scamper hadst been allowed to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... Henry Astor went next. He alone of his father's sons took to his father's trade. It used to be thrown in his teeth, when he was a thriving butcher in the city of New York, that he had come over to America as a private in the Hessian army. This may only have been the groundless taunt of an envious rival. It is certain, however, that he was a butcher in New York when it was a British post during the revolutionary war, and, remaining after the evacuation, made a large ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... Robert Hessian, brothers, bachelors, and dressed in mourning, sat together after supper in the parlour of their house at the bottom of Oldcastle Street, Bursley. Maggie, the middle-aged ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... were brought to the door. Wildfire, a sleek, powerful roan of large size, was a fit steed for the stalwart Tom, who, in neatly-fitting costume and Hessian boots, got into the saddle like a man accustomed to it. The other horse, Slapover, was a large, strong-boned, somewhat heavy steed, suitable for a man who weighed sixteen stone, and stood six feet ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... this feeling of security, he, in the course of the session of 1791-2, repealed taxes to the amount of 200,000l. a year, made considerable reductions in the naval and military establishments, and allowed the Hessian Subsidy to expire, without any movement towards its renewal. He likewise showed his perfect confidence in the tranquillity of the country, by breaking off a negotiation into which he had entered with the holders of the four per cents, for the reduction of their stock to three per cent.—saying, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... Washington's reply to the message, "to use the bayonet, for the town must be taken." When they reached Trenton it was broad daylight. Washington, at the front and on the right of the line, swept down the Pennington road, and, as he drove back the Hessian pickets, he heard the shout of Sullivan's men as, with Stark leading the van, they charged in from the river. A company of jaegers and of light dragoons slipped away. There was some fighting in the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... Brunswick advances, from stage to stage: who shall now stay him,—covering forty miles of country? Foragers fly far; the villages of the North-East are harried; your Hessian forager has only 'three sous a day:' the very Emigrants, it is said, will take silver-plate,—by way of revenge. Clermont, Sainte-Menehould, Varennes especially, ye Towns of the Night of Spurs; tremble ye! Procureur Sausse and the Magistracy of Varennes have fled; brave Boniface ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... opulent family, where all provisions were liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were uniformly well dressed; and, in particular, we wore troussers, (at that time unheard of, except among sailors,) and we also wore Hessian boots—a crime that could not be forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it expressed the double offence of being aristocratic and being outlandish. We were aristocrats, and it was vain to deny it; could we deny ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Dutch convoy could hardly protect me. But yet more formidable seems the journey by land in the existing state of the times. In Westphalia the Hessians and Swedes rove about, rendering the roads unsafe. Even should I take my way over the flats, along the strand, yet the Swedish and Hessian troops could easily catch up with me, and overpower the escort promised me for safe-conduct by the counts of East Friesland and Oldenburg and the Bishop of Bremen. Or should I bend my course through Upper Germany and Franconia, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... drizzle of small, annoying, contemptible rain-drops, which, without possessing the energy and dignity of a shower, were infinitely more disagreeable, and found their way to the flesh in spite of all the protective armoury of great-coats, hessian cloaks, or umbrellas. It seemed as if a wet blanket were drawn between the sun and the earth. The atmosphere was always foggy, often perfectly wet, but never thoroughly dry. It wanted vitality; and every person that breathed it partook of its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... recall her to life. Comparing what free labor has done for the granite rock called Massachusetts, and what slave labor has done for the enchanted garden called Virginia, one would say, that, though the Dutch ship that brought to our shores the Norway rat was bad, and that which brought the Hessian fly was worse, the most fatal ship that ever cast anchor in American waters was that which brought the first twenty negroes to the settlers of Jamestown. Like the Indian in her own aboriginal legend, on whom a spell was cast which kept the rain from falling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Revolution, a regiment of Hessian soldiers hired to fight on the British side were camped in South Carolina. They took possession of the lower part of the house of a farmer named Gibbes. The family were forced to retire to the ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... father's house, at first to the children more formidable than the doctor, and by and by the most revered all, was a Scotch cavalry officer. With his Hessian boots, and their tremendous spurs, sustaining the grandeur of his scarlet coat and powdered queue, there was something to youthful imaginations very awful in the tall and stately hussar; and that awe was nowise abated when they got courage to look on his high forehead which overhung ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... a warning be, That the Lord is with the South, that His arm is with the free; That her soil is pure and spotless, as her clear and sunny sky. And that he who dare pollute it on her soil shall basely die; For His fiat hath gone forth, e'en among the Hessian horde, That the South has got His blessing, for the South is ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... see the escort!" said Ruyven to me. "Dragoons, cousin, in leather helmets and jack-boots, and all wearing new sabres taken from the Hessian cavalry. They're in the quarters with Tim Murphy, of Morgan's, and, Lord! how ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... thousand thalers were a straight bonus, for the English Government agreed to pay the Hessian soldiers the same as they paid their own English soldiers, and to treat them in all other ways ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... times drafts were had from the regiments of the line, and the soldiers were made to lay aside the musket and bayonet, and taught to wield the saber and carbine. One particular body of the subsidiary troops was included in this arrange ment, and the Hessian yagers were transformed into a corps of heavy and ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... resigned his commission, and, at the beginning of the troubles, had offered his services to Congress, which were readily accepted. General Howe affected to consider him as a deserter, and ordered him into close confinement. Washington had no prisoner of equal rank, but offered six Hessian field officers in exchange for him, and required that, if that offer should not be accepted, General Lee should be treated according to his rank in the American army. General Howe replied that General Lee was a deserter from his majesty's service, and could not be ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... Washington in 1776, stood before Sir Henry Clinton, the English commander, shifting uneasily as he fumbled his cap with his great, hairy hands. Sir Henry looked him over coldly with his quiet, keen eyes that cowed man and horse alike; then he turned to his companion, General Heister, Commander of the Hessian mercenaries, purchased by the British king and sent overseas to ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... cavalry—seventy-four men in all—gave grand echt deutsche Militaerconcerte. The group of typical German peasant homes, the Black Forest House, the Westphalian Inn, the Upper Bavarian Home, and the Spreewald House, together with the Hessian Rural Town-hall, and the Castle were exact reproductions of mediaeval times. A portion of this stronghold from a remote date, was given up to the ethnographic museum; a collection chiefly of implements of war and of chase, ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... the summit of the Snag Berg, or Snake Hill, where, in the days of the Revolution, a Continental battery for a moment commanded the valley of the Harlem, only to be whisked away, when the enemy came, and a Hessian battery was installed in its place. But where the stretch of magnificence breaks, although it continues to be Fifth Avenue in name, it ceases to be Fifth Avenue ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... travel this year will doubtless be glad to learn that the Hessian fly has been observed in unusual abundance in Westphalia. This succulent morceau is now eaten fried, with a sauce of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... enough to be reprinted in English as it contains hitherto very little known details of this voyage. At the end will be found an Extract from the Diary of the German Poet and Adventurer, J. G. Seume, a Hessian Soldier and Participator on ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister

... love of fine clothes he shared with all the best of his kind, and he visited Mr Bilger—the jeweller who arrested him—magnificently arrayed. He wore a black coat and waistcoat, blue pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a hat 'in the extreme of the newest fashion.' He was also resplendent with gold watch and eye-glass. His hair was powdered, and a fawney sparkled on his dexter fam. The booty was enormous, and a week later he revisited the shop on another errand. This second visit was the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... thousand seamen were made prisoners at a time when England sorely needed them for drafting into her navy. To lose them was a far more serious matter than for General Washington to capture as many Hessian mercenaries who ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... was not a woman to bestow mental culture upon her only child, but she racked her small brain to devise becoming costumes for Violet: the coloured stockings which harmonised best with each particular gown, the neat little buckled shoes, the fascinating Hessian boots. Nothing was too beautiful or too costly for Violet. She was the one thing her parents possessed in the world, and they lavished much love upon her; but it never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Tempest, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... could discuss in common, Lady Lena's ready tact alluded to my past life. Mrs. Roylake had told her that I was educated at a German University. She had heard vaguely of students with long hair, who wore Hessian boots, and fought duels; and she appealed to my experience to tell her something more. I did my best to interest her, with very indifferent success, and was undeservedly rewarded by a patient attention, which presented the unselfish ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... present time. During the summer of 1912 there was a great outbreak of army worms in South Carolina. In innumerable millions they marched across the country, destroying vegetation like a consuming fire. In the year 1900 Hessian flies appeared in great numbers in Ohio and Indiana, and before they subsided they had destroyed absolutely two and one-half million acres of the finest wheat to be found in the Middle West, and wheat land dropped 40 per cent. ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... of the Hessian Railway Company was recently the hero of an amusing incident. His wife being ill, he went himself to milk the goat; but the stubborn creature would not let him come near it, as it had always been accustomed to have ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... here—I am not going to dispute it. Nor will I say papa is quite in the wrong when he cries shame on some of the costumes one meets on the Boulevards. My dear, short skirts and grey hair do not go well together. I cannot even bear to think of grand-mamma showing her ankles and Hessian boots! But what vexes and enrages me is the injustice of the sudden outcry. Where has the slang come from? Pray who brought it into the drawing-room? How is it that girls delight in stable-talk, and imitate ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... Gushington, D.D., of Boston, making a bronchial tour of California, wrote to the "Christian Pathfinder" an affecting account of his visit to them, placed Daddy Downey's age at 102, and attributed the recent conversions in Rough-and-Ready to their influence. That gifted literary Hessian, Bill Smith, traveling in the interests of various capitalists, and the trustworthy correspondent of four "only independent American journals," quoted him as an evidence of the longevity superinduced by the climate, offered him as an example ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... black men continued to enlist "under various laws and sometimes under no law, and in defiance of law." The records of every one of the original thirteen States show that each had colored troops. A Hessian officer observed in 1777 that "the Negro can take the field instead of his master; and, therefore, no regiment is to be seen in which there are not negroes in abundance, and among them there are able-bodied, strong and brave fellows."[52] "Here too," said ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray



Words linked to "Hessian" :   Hessian boot, jackboot, Wellington, Hessian fly, Wellington boot, boot



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