"Coxswain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bows of the two officers by a slow inclination of the head and took her place at the table opposite her father. All sat down. The coxswain of the steam launch came up ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... in came the midshipman who had been so kind to me the night before. "Come, Mr Bottlegreen," he bawled out, alluding, I suppose, to the colour of my clothes, "rouse and bitt. There's the captain's coxswain waiting for you below. By the powers, you're in a pretty scrape for what you did ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... "Our chief coxswain, on his return from the island of Dirck Hartighs, brought us a pewter plate of about six inches in diameter, on which was roughly engraven two Dutch inscriptions, the first dated 25th of October, 1616, and the second dated 4th of February, 1697. This plate had ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... to make you his clerk, or maybe some day you will become his coxswain," observed Jack, whose ambition soared no higher. "I should like to be that, but I suppose that it is not necessary to be able to read, or write, or sum. I never could make any hand at those things, but you seem up to them, and so it's all ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... his research, Mr. Dell returned to the first cove; where a great concourse of natives, armed with bows, arrows, clubs, and lances, were assembled at the outskirt of the wood. By offering knives and other things, a few were induced to approach the boat; and the coxswain seized one of them by the hair and neck, with the intention of his being taken off to the ships, to give an account of the missing boat and people. A shower of arrows instantly came out of the wood; and a firing was commenced, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... aboard, not even a mouse. The mainmast was gone, all but a stump, and the moulderin' tackle lay on the deck all of a heap. The plankin' was rotten and fallin' to bits, and the place on the starn where her name had been was clean mouldered away. All at once our coxswain, Bill Grimes, gives a jump and a holler as if he'd trod on a rattlesnake; and when we ran for'ard, what should we see, half hid among the weeds, but the skeleton of a man, fastened to the bulwarks by a ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a mate and Desmond going with him; Mr Mildmay commanded the cutter, accompanied by Billy Blueblazes; and Dicky Duff was in the boatswain's boat. The commodore led the expedition in his own gig, in the stem of which sat, as coxswain, Tom Bashan, noted as the biggest man in the fleet—even the carpenter of the Opal looked but of ordinary size alongside him. He had followed Captain Douce from ship to ship, and had often rendered his commander essential service, when the little man might ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... at this time. In 1782 the frigate Albemarle, twenty-eight guns, lay in the harbour, and her brilliant, handsome commander was Horatio Nelson. This paragon of fortune had entered His Majesty's Navy as a child of twelve; at fourteen he was captain's coxswain on the expedition of the Carcass to the North Pole; and now, with an astonishing experience crowded into a life of twenty-four years, he dropped anchor ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... about 400 years ago from the South Sea Islands, and drove out or exterminated the natives. As a fact the Maoris are immeasurably superior to the Australian natives. Captain Cook, in describing his landing in 1769, says, "one of the natives raised his spear, as if to dart it at the boat; the coxswain fired, and shot him dead,"—a melancholy omen of the future relations between the natives and the strangers. The Maori wars have cost us many lives, but, of course, have always had the same ending. ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... in and out of New Orleans, where he sold the proceeds of his voyages and captures. To this genial old ruffian was born a son, Robert Richard, after which event the father settled down and became a respectable merchant in Hanover Street, New York. He was coxswain of the barge crew of thirteen ship's captains who rowed General Washington from Elizabethtown Point to New York, on the way to the first inauguration. When Robert Richard came to die, in 1801, he dictated, propped up in bed, his last will. After the bequests to relatives and servants, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... on her beam ends, resulting, I fear, in her total destruction, and in the loss of many lives. Providentially only four men were lost; these were in the boats at the time the shock commenced. The boats that were down were all swamped except my gig, which was crushed under the keel, killing my coxswain, a most valuable man. During this terrific scene the officers and men behaved with coolness and subordination. It affords me great pleasure to state, that, after a careful examination of the position ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... fellows who composed the crew strained at their oars until every thing cracked again; but as the flood made, the current against us increased, and we barely held our own. "Steer her, out of the current, man," said the lieutenant to the coxswain; the man put the tiller to port as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Ned Land, and I found seats in the stern of the skiff. The longboat's coxswain took the tiller; his four companions leaned into their oars; the moorings were cast off ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... sensible, ingenious character, had highly whetted our curiosity; and it was with something like excitement that we saw the beach and terrace suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king and party embark, the boat (a man-of-war gig) come flying towards us dead before the wind, and the royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount the ladder with a jealous diffidence, and descend ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her husband at the table, and poured out a cup of tea, "for there's bin two sloops an' a schooner on the rocks off the pier-head for three hours past, an' a' the lads are out at them,—Uncle John among the rest. They've made him coxswain o' the new lifeboat since ye ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... 10th September, 1903, a vessel was driven ashore on the Gore Sands. Soon after daybreak a call was made for the Burnham Lifeboat, but, in consequence of the heavy seas, the crew was unable to launch her. The coxswain, therefore, telegraphed for the Watchet Lifeboat to proceed to the rescue. Every endeavour was made by the Postal Telegraph authorities to expeditiously transmit the message, but the elements which had operated against the vessel, had likewise played ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... to believe,' muttered Edward Templemore; 'but, as the lady says, this is no time for explanation. With your permission, madam,' said he to Clara, 'my coxswain will see you in safety on board of the schooner, or the other vessel, if you prefer it; my duty will not allow ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... accomplished, as will be seen presently; but there was a long debate, in whispers, amongst the men, as to the most expedient plan of keeping the body of their late pet from once more showing her snout above the stream. At length, it was suggested by the coxswain of one of the boats which had been sent during the morning to sound the passage, that as the bed of the river where the brig lay consisted of a deep layer of mud, it would be a good thing if Jean's remains could be driven so far into this soft stratum as to ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Count," answered the coxswain for the boat's crew. His words were accompanied by the fall of the oars and the boat ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... a barge came out to us, ill-manned and ill-managed by as scared a set of "galoots" as ever capsized a boat, or trembled at a shadow! The coxswain had more to say than the doctor, and the Yahoo—I forgot to mention that we were still in Yahoodom, but one would see that without this explanation—the Yahoo in the bow said more than both; and they all took a stiff pull from a bottle ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... the head of his men cheerful, joyous, well dressed, rather foppish, in fact, his face shining with good humor as with oil. Again, Nelson, in the worst of dangers, was as cheerful as the day. He had even a rough but quiet humor in him just as he carried his coxswain behind him to bundle the swords of the Spanish and French captains under his arm. He could clap his telescope to his blind eye, and say, "Gentlemen, I can not make out the signal," when the signal ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... conducted on principles different from those that control the training of every other person in the fleet. Men being the same in general, their qualities differing only in degree, it is logical to conclude that, if a gun-pointer or coxswain is best trained by being made first to understand the principles that underlie the correct performance of his work, and then by being given a good deal of practice in performing it, a commander-in-chief, or a captain, engineer, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... are only to go," said Phillips, as the coxswain of the first cutter called away his ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... answered WILLIAM LEE (The kindly captain's coxswain he, A nervous, shy, low-spoken man), He cleared his ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... thanks, for much useful and thrilling information, are due to Mr Isaac Jarman, the coxswain, and Mr Fish, the bowman, of the Ramsgate Lifeboat-men who may be said to carry their lives continually in their hands, and whose profession it is to go out at the call of duty and systematically grapple ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... till the coxswain bade us hold our lubberly tongues, and not frighten the whales; however, we soon found we wanted all our breath for our work, and more too." Then David painted the furious race after the whale, and how the boat gradually gained, and how at last, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... walloper [Slang]; tar, jack tar, salt, able seaman, A. B.; man-of-war's man, bluejacket, galiongee^, galionji^, marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman^, boatman, ferryman, waterman^, lighterman^, bargeman, longshoreman; bargee^, gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain^; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist^, airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, glider pilot, bush pilot, navigator, flight ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Starter gives the word to go, the men paddle till the cord which the coxswain holds at arm's length is tight, and every man has his oar ready for the dash into the water and away. To lose time at the start is to find that a chance has been ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness |
