"Privateer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the province, and by his own account had ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... body. Besides which he couldn't understand what dey 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 ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... 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 sprung ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... 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 ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... not a man o' war or privateer," said he, Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we! "But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee, Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree." —Shanty of ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... a visit to England in order to expedite matters, and to consult with the officials of the London Missionary Society. After some delay, caused by the capture of the vessel in which he was sailing by a French privateer, he reached London and saw the directors. They agreed to support him and his companions should the American Board be unable to do so, and with this ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... all the same when he has the command, and your flag will never change. You may double the Cape then without dread of a privateer; crowd sail beneath the great ship Argo, or be rocked by any land-breeze in Britain without dread of molestation. The lad may look, as I have often done, over the lee-gangway, during the morning watch, seeking the sight of the far off ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... 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, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I shall have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. He'd find himself growing thin, if he ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... little in his walk; who seemed to be stifled in his black dress-coat, but who still retained the distinguished manners and bearing of a nobleman of the last century, one of those who, when he was ruined, fitted out a privateer, and fell upon the English wherever he met them, from St. Malo to Calcutta. And wherever he showed himself ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... curious man in two continents. I am bewildered. First, you kidnap a chauffeur and privateer his car, then me. Now you besiege a friend and wish to leave me on his doorstep ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... loading of the artillery, the rule should be to place all common and machine guns on deck. A certain amount of ammunition should be stowed so as to be quickly accessible. This is an essential measure to afford the transport protection from some privateer. The guns should be securely placed to prevent their movement by the motion of the sea and to render feasible their use on deck. Trials will soon be made to find the suitable means whereby field artillery may be put to successful use on shipboard, and this testing will certainly repay ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... as seemed to preclude all possibility of escaping; yet he was never abandoned by his hope and recollection; he still found some expedient that saved him from captivity and death; and through the whole course of his distresses maintained the most amazing equanimity and good humour. At length a privateer of Saint Malo, hired by the young Sheridan and some other Irish adherents, arrived in Lochnannach; and on the twentieth day of September, this unfortunate prince embarked in the habit which he wore for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... himself very often on the subject of that troublesome question about Captain Paget. How was he to sever his frail skiff from that rakish privateer? What excuse could he find for renouncing his share in the Omega-street lodgings, and setting up a new ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... captain, as he watched the change. "She means to get away from us. It won't do. As soon as we are within range, I'll give her a gun. She may be a Mexican privateer, for all ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... about three months after this short visit, the fleet being off Corsica, that our hero was walking the deck, thinking that he soon should see the object of his affections, when a privateer brig was discovered at anchor a few miles from Bastia. The signal was made for the boats of the fleet to cut her out; and the Admiral, wishing that his nephew should distinguish himself somehow, gave him the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... 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 more or less crippled condition ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... privateers could not be 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 blockading the entire Southern coast, with its three thousand miles of coast line, was on ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... wrote the Minister, Berryer, "laden with goods such as are wanted in the colony, was captured by a privateer from St. Malo, and brought into Quebec. You sold the whole cargo for eight hundred thousand francs. The purchasers made a profit of two millions. You bought back a part for the King at one million, or two hundred thousand more than the price which you sold the whole. With ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... privateers,' then swarming the Irish coast. From eight to ten of these desperate characters were sent to Cork for trial at every assize of Bear Haven. They swore vengeance upon the upright magistrate; and in the year 1704, a French privateer hove in sight—soon anchoring, he faced M. Fontaine's house. The vessel mounted ten guns, with a crew of eighty seamen. The Huguenot mustered all his men, amounting to twenty, and, sending the Papists away, he supplied ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... out a long list of articles, and sketching a skull with particular lines and figures radiating from it for nought, to say nothing of hiding the paper away in such a cosy little nook as the one in which I found it. Thus reflecting I turned along the middle path homeward, wondering if some old privateer skipper, or even pirate, had long years ago hidden the articles mentioned in the list in some part of the island, or could it refer to some ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... personal freedom to others. They seized and carried away into slavery some of the unoffending natives, the Eskimos, who were freemen and whose only crime was their helplessness. One instance will suffice. The Minerva privateer of Boston, Captain John Grimes, Master, mounting 20 nine pounders and manned with 160 men landed on Sandwich Bay, Labrador, at Captain George Cartwright's station, took his brig, The Countess of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Night at the Club, and produced a Letter from Ipswich, which his Correspondent desired him to communicate to his Friend the SPECTATOR. It contained an Account of an Engagement between a French Privateer, commanded by one Dominick Pottiere, and a little Vessel of that Place laden with Corn, the Master whereof, as I remember, was one Goodwin. The Englishman defended himself with incredible Bravery, and beat off the French, after having been boarded three or four times. The Enemy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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 ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... by a 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 which M. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... this; and promised to leave him to the attacks of the little privateer, without falling foul of him ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... sandal-wood, thus used, did those interested exact it. As for the vessel, she sailed like a witch, was coppered and copper-fastened, but was both old and weak. She had quarters, having been used once as a privateer, and mounted ten sixes. Her burthen was two hundred tons, and her name the Mermaid. The papers were all American, and ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... was commander of one of the privateer ships sailing in Spanish-American waters. When Captains Swan and Davis parted company he accompanied the latter. See Dampier's Voyage, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... thinking what dreadful scenes would be enacted upon them. The fact is that the Mary Ellen was destined for the African trade, in which she made many very successful voyages. In 1779, however, she was converted into a privateer. My father, at the present time, would not, perhaps, be thought very respectable; but I assure you he was so considered in those days. So many people in Liverpool were, to use an old and trite sea-phrase, "tarred with the same brush" that these ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... 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 six ...
— 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
... Netherlands has also, in further illustration of his character for justice and of his desire to remove every cause of dissatisfaction, made compensation for an American vessel captured in 1800 by a French privateer, and carried into Curacoa, where the proceeds were appropriated to the use of the colony, then, and for a short time after, under the dominion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... present his case forcibly and with dignity. He laboured with energy and discretion to prevent the sailing of the "Alabama''; and, when unsuccessful in this, he persistently urged upon the British government its responsibility for the destruction of American merchant vessels by the privateer. In his own diary he shows that underneath his calm exterior were serious trouble and keen anxiety; and, in fact, the strain which he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell to stop the "Alexandra,'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that the island, with its reputation for poverty, its two settlements 40 leagues apart, and scanty population, offered too little chance for booty, so that no other landing is recorded till 1538, when a privateer was seen chasing a caravel on her way to San German. The caravel ran ashore at a point two leagues from the capital and the crew escaped into the woods. The Frenchmen looted the vessel and then proceeded to Guadianilla, where they landed ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... above the two Jamaica prizes are, by order of Court, arrested, and it remains doubtful whether they will not be restored to the original proprietors. The captain of one of the privateers on his passage took on board a lady, who was prisoner on board an American privateer, bound for Boston. This he did from motives of humanity. On his arrival at Painbeuf, she wrote to her brother, a merchant at Nantes, who came down, and hoping to get the consignment of the prizes, officiously advised the captain ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... his ship with a crew of men of a different nationality. Aside from the few who had always loved him, nobody would lament his death. He did not belong to any of the nations at war; he was a species of privateer bound not to begin an attack. He was even less,—an officer carrying supplies under the protection of a neutral flag. This flag was not deceiving anybody. His enemies knew the ship, seeking for it with more determination than if he were with the Allied ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was generally in their favour; and the brig was not far off from the chops of the Channel, when a low raking vessel was perceived bearing down upon them from the N.W. Newton had no glass; but as she neared to within three miles, the vessel wore the appearance of a privateer schooner; but whether an enemy or not, it was impossible to decide. The Estelle had two small brass guns on her forecastle; and Newton, to ascertain the nation to which the privateer belonged, hoisted the French ensign and fired a gun. In a minute the privateer hoisted English colours; but ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... part of the year 1716, a privateering captain, one Benjamin Hornigold, raised him from the ranks and put him in command of a sloop—a lately captured prize and Blackbeard's fortune was made. It was a very slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert "privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before Teach made that change. Not only did he make it himself, but he persuaded his old captain to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... remonstrances of a good father, who from the habits of his life, being of the Quaker profession, looked on me as lost; but the impression, much as it affected me at the time, wore away, and I entered afterwards in the King of Prussia privateer, Captain Mender, and went with her ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... 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 ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... 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 ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... his share of the privateer, and expects L10 more; but of what avail is it to take prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? He has been buying gold chains and topaz crosses for us. He ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... "Montreuil proposes to leave England by means of a French privateer, or pirate, if that word please you better. Exactly at the hour of twelve, he will meet some of the sailors upon the seashore, by the Castle Cave; thence they proceed in boats to the islet, off which the pirate's ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Did the gallant privateer possibly talk with the farmer about the introduction of that new esculent, the potato? Did they talk tobacco? Did Colin Clout have any observations to make upon the rot in sheep, or upon the probable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... 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 dreams and other somnolencies, whereof we ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... account." Many an honest seaman was captured with the rest of his ship's crew by a pirate, and either voluntarily joined the freebooters by signing their articles, or, being a good navigator or "sea-artist," was compelled by the pirates to lend them his services. Others, again, were in privateer ships, which carried on a legitimate warfare against the shipping of hostile countries, under a commission ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse |
