"Piracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... open sea, would be no match for a few regular men-of-war. New England had no navy, though the New Englanders had enjoyed a good deal of experience in minor privateering against the Spaniards during the last few years, as well as a certain amount of downright piracy in time of peace, whenever a Frenchman or a Spaniard could be safely taken at a disadvantage. So Shirley asked Commodore Warren, commanding the North American station, to lend his aid. Warren had married an American and was very well ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... opposite to our expeditious and summary mode of proceeding, of punishing first and trying afterwards, that it must be both humiliating and offensive. In return, when the Americans have complained to Turreaux against the piracy of our privateers, he has sent them here to seek redress, where they also will, to their cost, discover that in civil cases our justice has not the same rapid march as when it is a question of arresting or transporting suspected persons, or of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... power to maintain it. But remember, that though the law only punishes the illegal trader by confiscation of his goods when taken, it punishes the kidnapper with personal pains, and sometimes with—death!—And, more—remember that the line which divides smuggling from piracy is easily past, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... was the very top-notcher of them all, the finest flower of piracy. He didn't go pirating just during the summer months, when his other business was slack. And he would have died before he'd have been a wrecker. It was a profession, with him. And an inherited one, too. He was the third of the name. He started in as ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... Indiaman. The Jolly Roger and three or four blank shots from the little signal gun drove three panic-stricken fishing boats from their fishing-ground as fast as oars and sails could carry them, to spread abroad a legend of piracy in the Gulf which would last ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Fortune, committed many piracies on the American Coast, having captured and sunk several vessels.—On the 6th of June, they captured a Virginia sloop, which they plundered and let go, who soon after fell in with his Majesty's Ship Grey Hound, Capt. Solgard, of 20 guns, who on being informed of the piracy, immediately went in pursuit of the Pirates, and on the 10th came up with them about 14 leagues south from the east end of Long Island. They mistaking her for a Merchant ship, immediately gave chase and commenced firing under the black flag.—The ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... think," said Senhouse. "Robin Goodfellow." He had recovered himself in that breathing-space. "How splendid of you both. Come and see my ship. I'm in moorings now, you know. I've cut piracy." ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... room; or, better still, when they were wandering together in some sequestered garden walk or shady lane; and, now, here he had unexpectedly, and undesignedly, found his opportunity at a pic-nic dinner, with half a hundred people close beside him, and his ears assaulted with a songster's praises of piracy and murder. Strange accompaniments to a declaration of the tender passion! But, like others before him, he had found that there was no such privacy as that of a crowd - the fear of interruption probably ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... with his condition, And shut his ears to counsels of ambition, More faithless than the wreck-strown sea, and which Doth thousands beggar where it makes one rich,— Inspires the hope of wealth, in glorious forms, And blasts the same with piracy and storms. ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... Bhawni-worshippers who offer indiscriminate human sacrifices to the Dess of Destruction. The word and the thing have been made popular in England through the "Confessions of a Thug" by my late friend Meadows Taylor; and I may record my conviction that were the English driven out of India, "Thuggee," like piracy in Cutch and in the Persian Gulf, would revive at the shortest ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... and to whom the olive tree was dedicated. Her the Athenians afterwards regarded as the patroness of their city, which they called after her name. Athens becoming famous for its olives, and, considerable profit arising from their cultivation, the new settlers attempted to wean the natives from piracy, by calling their attention to agricultural pursuits. To succeed in this, they composed a fable, in which Neptune was said to be overcome by Minerva; who, even in the judgment of the twelve greater deities, had found ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Tringanu they make some of the best steel in the world—the natives, I mean. That's where those curly krisses and Malay daggers come from. But the piracy is all over. Tringanu isn't exactly civilized, I'll admit, but it's under British protection, like all the ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... burglars in 1821, his Indian convict servant, though wounded by a "kris," succeeded in capturing the burglar, who turned out to be a Malay pirate from Bencoolen. Robbery on land was not common amongst Malays in those days, but piracy was one of their pastimes, and their romances always glorify their ancestors in ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... more than a million francs. Literary works were not at that time properly protected, and it was the province of the Society of Men of Letters to demand from the Government an effective defense against the "hideous piracy" of foreign countries. Balzac was admitted to the Society in 1839,—although with no small difficulty, for he had many enemies, and received only fifty-three votes, while forty-five were necessary for election,—but it was ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... intercourse, many coins and much jewellery, in which all that is Oriental in its style has been leavened by its passage through Byzantine and Romanesque channels. Gibbon, writing of this period, says: "The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated the countries of the earth" (see Gibbon's "Decline ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... River gang are said to own a fine schooner, in which they cruise along the Hudson almost to Albany, and carry on a system of piracy at the river towns. Farmers and country merchants suffer greatly from their depredations. A year or so ago, it was rumored that they were commanded by a beautiful and dashing woman, but this story is now believed to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... basest of all passions. One cow held his attention more particularly than the others. She was small, and black and white, and her build suggested Brittany extraction. She ran a sort of free lance piracy all round the corral. Her sharp horns were busy whenever she saw a sister apparently enjoying herself too cordially. And in every case she drove the bigger beast out and seized ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... of the eighteenth century the population of Manhattan Island had increased to 5,000 souls, chiefly Dutch and English. These figures include about 800 negro slaves. The slave trade and piracy were at this time perfectly legitimate ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... began to find himself hanging around her father's house, nights, and feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she should die! There was distraction in the thought. He no longer took an interest in war, nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone; there was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat; there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to try all manner of remedies on him. She was one of those people who are infatuated with patent medicines ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... has not. It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her judge, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice; her priests, occupying the pulpit in the name of universal love, owned stock in slave ships and luxuriated in the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the year 1808 that the United States abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... three to one it was said, in the election of May, 1798; but a torrent of excitement over the alien and sedition laws submerged other issues, and the convention sanctioned slavery as it existed. The African slave trade was made piracy by act of Congress in 1808, though the extreme penalty was not inflicted for sixty years, and a considerable traffic still went on. In furtherance of emancipation, a colonization society was started in Pennsylvania, and in a few years it had ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... licensed by Government under a letter of marque to seize and plunder the ships of an enemy, otherwise an act of the kind is treated as piracy. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... in which a direct copy, even to matters of detail, appeared to have been made; and, in spite of all attempts to gloss over and palliate, it was impossible to deny that an unblushing act of mere piracy seemed to have been committed, of which I never could bring myself to believe that Shakspeare had been guilty. The readiness to impute this act to him was to me but an instance of the unworthy manner in which he had almost ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... the older culture of Christendom. Either Prussianism would win and the protest would be hopeless, or Prussianism would lose and the protest would be needless. As the war advanced from poison gas to piracy against neutrals, it grew more and more plain that the scientifically organised State was not increasing in popularity. Whatever happened, no Englishmen would ever again go nosing round the stinks of that low laboratory. So I thought all I had written irrelevant, and put it ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... romantic novels, "Jane la Pale," "La Derniere Fee," and their fellows.[*] Balzac, as we have seen was in terrible straits for money, and he knew that the Belgians, who at this time practised the most shameless piracy, would reprint the books for their own advantage, if he did not. Therefore, in self-defence, he determined to bring out an edition himself; though, as he consistently refused to acknowledge the authorship of these despised productions, the treaty was drawn up in the name of friends. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... live on that side of the island which is washed by the Sulu Sea, and who ostensibly depend upon pearl fishing for a living, and really lived by their high-handed deeds of piracy against their neighbors and mankind in general, inhabit odd houses which are built on stout posts driven into the sand at the edge of the sea. The walls of the houses are woven of bamboo, and the roofs are thatched, like those of nearly ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... any rate, if what I propose should not be found of force to prevent piracy, I cannot but think from the generosity and justice of American feeling, that a considerable preference would be given in the market to the editions emanating directly from the publisher selected by the author, and in the sale of which the author ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Argolian knights, To chase the savage Calydonian [215] boar, Or Cephalus, with lusty [216] Theban youths, Against the wolf that angry Themis sent To waste and spoil the sweet Aonian fields. A monster of five hundred thousand heads, Compact of rapine, piracy, and spoil, The scum of men, the hate and scourge of God, Raves in Aegyptia, and annoyeth us: My lord, it is the bloody Tamburlaine, A sturdy felon, and [217] a base-bred thief, By murder raised to the ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... in Europe. Italy in the Middle Ages. Slavery existed in Italy in the thirteenth century, by war, piracy, and religious hatred. The preaching friars, by preaching against all property, helped to break it down, and it began to decline.[863] The religious hatred is illustrated by the act of Clement V ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... great skua may be seen at its favourite game of swooping on the gulls and making them disgorge or drop their launce or pilchard, which the bird usually retrieves before it reaches the water. This act of piracy has earned for the skua its West Country sobriquet of "Jack Harry," and against so fierce an onslaught even the largest gull, though actually of heavier build than its tyrant, has no chance and seldom indeed seems to offer the feeblest ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... moral standard) which has not at some time or other in some circumstances been looked upon as a moral and religious duty. Stealing was accounted virtuous for the young Spartan, and among the Indian caste of Thugs. In the ancient world, piracy, that is, robbery and murder, was a respectable profession. To the mediaeval Christian, religious persecution was the highest ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... their dealings with each other is usually spoken of as international law. As to certain rules of international conduct the civilized nations of the world have been in general agreement for many centuries. Among such rules are those for the carrying out of treaty obligations, the punishment of piracy, the protection of each other's ambassadors, the rights of citizens of one country to the protection of the laws of the country they are visiting, the protection of women and children ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... affair. On the 8th of August, 1807, the colony was surrendered into the hands of the Crown, and was made an English colony. During the same year in which this transfer was made, Parliament declared the slave-trade piracy; and a naval squadron was stationed along the coast for the purpose of suppressing it. At the first, many colored people of good circumstances, feeling that they would be safe under the English flag, moved from the United States to Sierra ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... thirsted. Wrong and injustice to the poor he resented as an injury to God. His vehement love for the poor is illustrated by his "Epistle to Coroticus," reproaching him with his cruelty, as well as by his denunciations of slavery, which piracy had introduced into parts of Ireland. No wonder that such a character should have exercised a talismanic power over the ardent and sensitive race among whom he laboured, a race "easy to be drawn, but impossible to be driven," and drawn more by sympathy than even by benefits. That character can ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... to those which had first been current. Mr. Van d. B., for all he bragged so of his Dutch parentage, came from Albany, and was nobody's son at all. He had made his money by land speculation, or by privateering (which was uncommonly like piracy), and by the Guinea trade. His son had married—if marriage it could be called, which was very doubtful—an assigned servant, and had been cut off by his father, and had taken to bad courses, and had died, luckily for himself, in ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... French corsair, Cornil Saus.[6] So convincing is Defoe that although his hero is shown meeting a real freebooter, Captain Tew, ten years after Tew's death, Misson is still included in the histories of piracy.[7] ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... Porte. The Uzcoques, who, although asserting a sort of independence, still dwelt on Austrian territory, and were reckoned as Austrian subjects, were secretly encouraged in the piracies which they committed indiscriminately against Turkish and Venetian vessels. These acts of piracy usually took place in the night, and could rarely be brought home to their perpetrators, although there could be no moral doubt as to the identity of the latter; but, even when proved, it was found impossible to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... a new danger threatened us. We had not been a month at the settlement after the piracy of the "Golden Seahorse" before it became evident to me that our crew had ceased to regard their officers with the same respect as they had formerly shown them on board ship. Sailors, ashore, are accustomed to a license they do not look for at sea. Hence it ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... Lord Larrian owns to there being few heroes in an army. We must fawn in society. What is the meaning of that dread of one example of tolerance? O my dear! let us give it the right name. Society is the best thing we have, but it is a crazy vessel worked by a crew that formerly practised piracy, and now, in expiation, professes piety, fearful of a discovered Omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves and captain. Their old habits are not quite abandoned, and their new one is used as a lash to whip the exposed of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... breathed his last, leaving Sarawak to his nephew, Mr. C. Brooke, the present Raja, his heirs and assigns, for ever. To realise the importance and extent of the deeds wrought by the late Raja, the State of Sarawak must be visited—a state which forty years since was a hot-bed of piracy and bloodshed, a state now as peaceful and secure as any of the British possessions ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... was incapable now of literary legerdemain. Publishers, undermined by piracy, paid badly; the newspapers made close bargains with hard-driven writers, as the Opera managers did with tenors ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... was of only 200 tons burden. She set sail for the South a few days before Christmas, 1592. There is no doubt that she was bound upon a piratical adventure. Piracy was not thought dishonourable in those days. Four years had elapsed since the Armada had approached the English coast; and now the English and Dutch ships were scouring the seas ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... this," said Mitchell, beaming, "and the Greens Committee will have to give up piracy and go ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... on both sides gave rise to actions which bordered on sheer piracy, concerning which many a tale fell on my ear all along the Guinea coast. Thus one Frenchman I met had been in command of a Spanish slaver, which was lying becalmed. He victoriously repulsed the attacking boats of a British cruiser, and killed the lieutenant in command of her, who was ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... "Quite right. And if our suspicions are based on fact, innocent flying men like yourselves may well beware of the fellows we are after. To be frank with you," pursued Mr. Ford, "a band of desperate smugglers are operating by aid of one or more aeroplanes. And piracy in the air may soon became as frequent—and as grave a peril to innocent aviators—as was ever ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... subject to the attack of the robber barons, who held him prisoner against heavy ransom; and in the innumerable hiding-places of the rock-bound northern coast his course was followed by the watch-boats of pirates. The occupations of highway robbery and piracy were at that time still regarded among wide circles as excusable. Dozens of feudal castles, the retreats of robber barons, were destroyed by the soldiers of the municipalities, and dozens of freebooting vessels were annihilated, the robbers ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... "High-seas piracy, if you prefer," assented Kirkwood with entire equanimity. "I'm going to have the money, and you're going to give it up. The transaction by any name would smell ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... and sunk, and among them were lost the treasure ships, so that the booty went to the bottom of the sea. This was the last memorable event in the history of the buccaneers of America, although a lower order of piracy prevailed, both in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... contract was made in 1818 by Webster with Mr. Hudson, who was to pay $3,000 a year during the term. The reader will recall similar arrangements in Irving's ventures. The popularity of the speller rendered it liable to piracy, especially in the ruder parts of the country, and as late as 1835 Mr. Webster writes to his son, established as a bookseller in Louisville: "I would suggest whether it would not be advisable to publish in Kentucky, or at least in Tennessee, a short note like this: ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... foreign supply will always be equal to the demand of consumption. It keeps the market open. It offers inducements to the slave-trader which no severity of law against his traffic can overcome. By our laws his trade is piracy; while slavery, to which alone it owes its existence, is protected and cherished, and those engaged in it are rewarded by an increase of political power proportioned to the increase of their stock of human beings! To steal the natives of Africa is ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and their mutual relations. According to our author, the Joloans and Basilans came from Butuan, in northeastern Mindanao; and the history of this migration is related in some detail, as well as the way in which the Joloans became so addicted to piracy. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... the legalized piracies of Sir Francis Drake, in the West Indies, and on the coasts of South America. This commander, in time of peace, insisted on a right to visit those ports which the Spaniards had closed, which, by the law of nations, is piracy. Philip, according to all political maxims, was forced to declare war with England, and he made immense preparations to subdue it. But the preparations of Elizabeth to resist the powerful monarch were also great, and Drake performed brilliant exploits on the sea, among other things, destroying one ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... awake, however, even during the administration of Washington, to its duty in the matter, and an act was passed declaring the slave-trade to be piracy. Twenty years afterward the principal European sovereigns united in the same declaration, and so the execrable commerce was hurled beyond the pale of international law. There is now no probability that it will ever regain its rank 'on change.' But its illegitimation does not seem to have greatly ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is no doubt that the sea swarms with pirates; the sultan is too busy with his own struggles for Empire to bestow any attention upon so small a matter. The pashas and the officers of the ports have not the power, even had they the will, to put down piracy in their districts, and indeed are, as often as not, participators in the spoils. Your Order, which, years back, scoured the seas so hotly that piracy well nigh ceased, have now for forty years been obliged to turn their attention chiefly to their own defence. They possess a comparatively ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... could carry. As this is their last appearance in these pages, it may be as well to say that they were never again heard of. Whether they perished in a storm, or gained some distant land, and followed their former leader's advice,—to repent of their sins,—or again took to piracy, and continued the practise of their terrible trade under a more bloody-minded captain, we cannot tell. They disappeared as many a band of wicked men has disappeared before, and never turned up again. With these remarks, we dismiss ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... served, respond willingly to your appeal for an explanation of the doors of bar-iron and the display of weapons—every first-class passenger always asks the question, and on every trip the British seafarers tell the story of Chinese piracy as practised up to comparatively recent times in the great estuary having a dozen or ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... the mountains to Panama, where the Englishmen were formally imprisoned as pirates and wicked enemies of his Majesty King Philip. Basil was soon busily at work in an endeavour to get them accused of heresy rather than piracy, and so put them into the hands of the Inquisition; for the ecclesiastics punished with infinitely greater cruelties than ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... commerce and in the fisheries, have also made it necessary to maintain a naval force there. In disposing of this force in both instances the most effectual measures in our power have been taken, without interfering with its other duties, for the suppression of the slave trade and of piracy ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... "Ah, piracy would be rather risky work in these seas, with lots of men-of-war about; at all events, in broad daylight, as it is now. From the distance the ship has run, we can't be very far off Cyprus, and the pirate, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... is singular. In all my experience at sea, I don't remember anything like it. What trick the Chilian barque— if she be Chilian—is up to, I can't guess; not for the life of me. It cannot be a case of piracy. The craft has no guns; and if she had, she appears without men to handle them. It's a riddle all round; to get the reading of which, we'll have to send a boat ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Roman history and mythology Latium was one of many communities occupying Italy. Each was self-governing. Each took the steps necessary for survival and expansion. Like their neighbors, the inhabitants of Latium were prepared to defend themselves against piracy, brigandage and ambitious, aggressive rivals. Defense took the form of an embankment and a water-filled moat which surrounded the early settlements and provided shelter for herdsman and farmers in ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... of the ninth century, Harold Harfager, one of the reguli of Norway, subdued the other petty rulers, and made himself king of the whole country. The defeated party fled to Orkney, and other islands of the west: whence, betaking themselves to piracy, they returned to ravage the coast of Norway. Harold pursued them to their places of refuge, and conquered and colonised Orkney about A.D. 875. The Norwegians at that time destroyed or expelled ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... map had called the peninsula "Doubloon Spit." Why? Clearly because he and his fellow buccaneers had buried there the ill-gotten treasure they had gained from piracy. No doubt the Santa Theresa was a gold ship they ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... prosperity the Knights derived a very considerable revenue from their galleys, and just as Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli throve on piracy, even so the wealth of the East contributed largely to the splendour of Malta. But during the seventeenth century various Christian Powers, such as Venice or France, insisted on restricting the Knights' ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... been undertaken against all maxims of policy as well as of justice; but the superior infamy of the second, aggravated by the disappointment of all the hopes entertained by good men from the triple alliance, and by the treacherous attempt at piracy with which it was commenced, seems to have effaced the impression of it, not only from the minds of men living at the time, but from most of the writers who have treated of this reign. The principle, however, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... their youth, and send them over the ocean to plunder and slay the inhabitants for the purpose of colonizing the countries they had previously devastated, such was never the character of the Celts. They never engaged extensively in trade, or what is often synonymous, piracy. Before becoming christianized, the Celts of Ireland crossed over the narrow channel which divided them from Britain, and frequently carried home slaves; they also passed occasionally to Armorica, and their annals speak of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of maritime adventure, and developed with the advancement of commerce. The Phoenicians and Greeks were especially apt in the interstate wars which frequently degenerated into rapine and plunder, and with them piracy became a recognized enterprise. In Homeric times it was dignified with a respect worthy of a nobler cause—a sentiment in which the freebooters of later centuries took arrogant pride. The pirate—cruel, vicious, debased to the lowest degree of turpitude—established a moral code governing ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... for horses and cattle belonging to an army. Also, the act of a military force in collecting or searching for such forage, or for subsistence or stores for the men; or, with ill-disciplined troops, for valuables in general. Land-piracy. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... his Message announced that the French government has proposed to the different Cabinets international relations for putting an end to the long tolerated abuse of literary and artistic piracy—that these propositions have been favorably received, in principle, by most of the Cabinets—and that between France and Sardinia a treaty has already been signed for the mutual protection of both these species of property. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... secret from the crew, until we had sailed from port. Of course, we 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 ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... stopped at Charleston, and, almost immediately upon its arrival, it was seized under a suspicion of piracy, and a search made for evidences of the unlawful traffic. The prisoners were released through some favor of the authorities, but Brisbau and his men were imprisoned. In the hands of the king's officers their lives were in great ...
— Money Island • Andrew Jackson Howell, Jr.
... from those of Hawkins and Drake. Both sets of seamen were brave and resourceful, but they were made use of differently, and were drafted from different sources. The latter were seamen and piratical rovers by choice, and warriors very often by necessity. They were willing, however, to combine piety, piracy, and sanguinary conflict in the effort to open out new avenues of commercial enterprise for the mutual benefit of themselves and the thrifty lady who sat upon the throne, and who showed no disinclination ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... (Great laughter.) I think you have made out a sufficient case for your injunction, Mr. Bethell;" and the injunction was accordingly granted. In the following year (July, 1845) steps had to be taken to protect Mr. and Mrs. Caudle from the wholesale piracy to which they were subjected on every side. Mr. Bethell again made a comic speech, directed primarily against the "Hereford Times" and the "Southport Visitor," in which the eighth and ninth lectures, illustrations and all, had been coolly reproduced, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... was a mere miracle; not stranger, or more apocryphal, than we hear of at this day in France, Spain, or Italy. The only singularity about the Texan tale is the fact of its not being original; for it is a pure piracy from Sacred Writ—that passage of it which relates to the crossing of the Red Sea ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... of piracy, Morgan's later history being an extraordinary one for a man of his infamous record. He was possessed with the demon of cupidity, and a quarrel arose between him and his men concerning the division of the spoil. Morgan ended it by running off with ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... rooted out from the little creeks and naval fastnesses of the Morea, and of some of the Egean islands. Not, perhaps, the mere spirit of wrong and aggression, but some old traditionary conceits and maxims, brought on the great crisis of piracy, which fell under no less terrors than of the triple thunders of the great allies.] Even in their quietest mood, these soldiers curbed Turkish tyranny; for, the captains and Christian primates of districts understanding each other, the former, by giving to some of their men a hint to desert and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... "This prize," says the historian of the voyage, "contained one hundred and twenty-two thousand pesos of gold, besides great quantities of rich silks, satins, damasks, and musk, with a good stock of provisions." In those romantic and adventurous days piracy was legalized by formal license; the spoils were supposed to consist of gold and silver only, ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... professional and amateur, are reserved by Clyde Fitch. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this piece must be made to The Macmillan Company. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided by the United ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... from Heaven: for if we will not allow a visible curse to pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the events of things with the divine justice? It was certainly an apparent vengeance on their crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the state they were in; and they showed not the least remorse for the crime, but added new villanies to it, such as the piece of monstrous cruelty of wounding a poor slave because he did not, or perhaps could not, understand to do what he was directed, and to wound ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... already been mentioned, has a figure on the sarcophagus obviously copied from the St. George; and elsewhere in this extremely curious example of plagiarism we find other figures suggested by Donatello's statues. The little figure in the Palazzo Pubblico at Pistoja is again an early bit of piracy. In the courtyard of the Palazzo Quaratesi in Florence, built by Brunellesco between 1425 and 1430, an early version of the head of St. George was placed in one of the circular panels above the pillars. It is without intrinsic importance, being probably a cast, but it shows ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... or tangible to the public. And now it looks distant and dim, like troubles of a century ago. The origin of the evil lay in the character of the seamen, scarcely any of whom were American, but the offscourings and refuse of all the seaports of the world, such stuff as piracy is made of, together with a considerable intermixture of returning emigrants, and a sprinkling of absolutely kidnapped American citizens. Even with such material, the ships were very inadequately manned. The shipmaster found himself upon the deep, with a ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... behind. What Selkirk and the Captain had quarrelled about has never been certainly known, but when we reflect that Selkirk was a Scotchman, we can understand that very likely he was unwilling to practice piracy on Sunday, while the captain insisted that any day was a fit day on which to rob a Spanish ship. This would have led to a quarrel, and very possibly was the precise cause of the quarrel which resulted in Selkirk leaving the ship at Juan Fernandez. It is true that the Cinque Ports ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... season of good government. The business of piracy had for some time been merrily carried on by various enterprising persons, some of whom lived very respectably in Philadelphia. William put a stop to it. The importing of slaves from Africa was at that time considered by most persons to be a good thing both for the planters and ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero. There was no rational principle in it, and the moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another. The cruelty of those times is incredible. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Manning the oars were a dozen evil-visaged ruffians, while in the stern of the approaching vessel there sat a grim-faced, weather-beaten spirit, armed to the teeth, his coat sleeves bearing the skull and cross-bones, the insignia of piracy. ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... well as Federalists. It is not forgery or murder to detest Pitt and George the Third, or to believe in France! Is it so poor a thing to become a leader of a party that has gained an empire, that has put an end to the Algerine piracy, that has reduced the debt, that has made easier every man's condition, and that stands for freedom of thought and deed and advance of all knowledge? Party! Now and then, even in Virginia, there is a marriage between the parties! My family—or my lack of family? The fact that my father rolled ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... as smoothly and surely as though they had "elapsed" on a theater program. The Kid worked away at his pipes and solder with no symptoms of backsliding. The Stovepipe gang continued its piracy on the high avenues, cracked policemen's heads, held up late travelers, invented new methods of peaceful plundering, copied Fifth avenue's cut of clothes and neckwear fancies and comported itself according to its lawless ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... that I may safely pass it by; and pass by almost as safely the argument which some have drawn from a chance expression of his in his pathetic letter to Lady Raleigh, in which he 'hopes that God would send him somewhat before his return.' To prove an intention of piracy in the despairing words of a ruined man writing to comfort a ruined wife for the loss of her first-born is surely to deal out hard measure. Heaven have mercy upon us, if all the hasty words which woe has wrung from our hearts are to be so judged ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... another caught the disease of plunder, which contaminated even the functionaries and the subjects of Rome. Amid the general anarchy, where impunity seemed certain, nobody restrained himself any longer. In Africa especially, where the old instinct of piracy is always half-awake, they applied themselves to ransack the fugitive Romans and Italians. Many rich people were come there, seeking a place of safety in the belief that they would be more secure when they ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the interior of the Consoo House, with the court in session, for the final decision of the charge of piracy committed by the crew of a Chinese junk on a French captain and sailors, at a short ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... a good and sound argument, but I am afraid the publishers—honest men—are not yet mentally prepared to give such reasoning due weight. I should think, that which refers to the injury inflicted upon themselves, by an oppressive competition in piracy, would influence them more; but, I suppose, all established matters, be they good or evil, are difficult to change. About the 'Phrenological Character' I must not say a word. Of your own accord, you have found the safest point from which to view it: I ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with his uncle Brightric, Edric's brother, and before the arrival of Canute, had betaken himself to the piracy of a sea chief, seduced twenty of the king's ships, plundered the southern coasts, burnt the royal navy, and then his history disappears from the chronicles; but immediately afterwards the great Danish army, called Thurkell's Host, invaded the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this extraordinary code of print which governs us, has been and is nothing more or less, it is evident, than so many statutes to guarantee the retention of the proceeds of fraud and theft, if the piracy were committed in a sufficiently large and impressive way. The indisputable proof is that every single fortune which has been obtained by fraud, is still privately held and is greater than ever; the Law zealously and jealously guards it. So has the Law practically worked; and if the thing is ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... for black. The Welsh like a mixture of black and white. Coffin lace is formed of very light stamped metal, and is made of almost as many patterns as the ribbons of Coventry. All our designs are registered, as there is a constant piracy going on, which it is necessary ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... with representing slavery as an evil,—a misfortune,—a calamity which has been entailed upon us by former generations,—and not as an individual CRIME, embracing in its folds robbery, cruelty, oppression and piracy. They do not identify the criminals; they make no direct, pungent, earnest appeal to the consciences of men-stealers; by consenting to walk arm-in-arm with them, they virtually agree to abstain from all ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... deploring the absence of man-of-war or steamer to send in pursuit, took their individual affidavits; and these he sent to San Francisco, from which point the account of the crime, described as piracy, spread to every ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the reply. "Much news and bad news." And the master of the Adrienne thereupon launched into a tale of piracy and treachery such, as I never had heard before. Leaning over the taffrail, his elbows out-thrust and his big hands folded, he roared the story at us in a great booming voice that at times seemed to drown the words in its own volume. Now, as the waves and the wind snatched it away, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... ship. I overheard some of their plans. They would have done it, storm or no storm. There was a plot to take the Ramona, put off all who would be in the way, take her to some port, change her name and engage her in what amounted to piracy." ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the reintrusion of the circumambient hostile populations; and underwent many changes. The sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea. Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... heard of his nephew's death, he sent his son Hallad over from Norway to Hrossey, as the mainland of Orkney was then called, and King Harald gave him the title of jarl. Failing in his efforts to put down the piracy of the Vikings, who continued their slayings and plunderings, Hallad, the last of the purely Norse jarls, resigned his jarldom, and returned ignominiously to Norway. In the absence at war of Hrolf the Ganger, who became ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... the mountain fastnesses and congregated for two reasons—one, so they could avoid capture, and the other so they could swoop down and "secure their own." Robbery and commerce came hand in hand, and piracy is almost ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... and a godly man in the wrong; and the most specious and well-intentioned system which allows justice to be confused with something else will allow it to be stretched, even by well-meaning persons, to cover theft, lying and flat piracy. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... two years of peace Edmund was again called upon to take up arms. Although the Danes attempted no fresh invasion some of their ships hung around the English coast, capturing vessels, interfering with trade, and committing other acts of piracy. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... handspikes for the honor of betraying my confidence. Once there were three masked murderers of the second watch bending at the same instant over the sleeping form of a cabin-boy, who had been heard to mutter, a week previously, that he had "Gold! gold!" the accumulation of eighty—yes, eighty—years' piracy on the high seas, while sitting as M.P. for the borough of Zaccheus-cum-Down, and attending church regularly. I saw the captain of the foretop surrounded by suitors for his hand, while he was himself fingering the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... a den of thieves; and I am afraid it is not altogether without reason, it has acquired this appellation. The people are said to live by piracy in time of war; and by smuggling and fleecing strangers in time of peace: but I will do them the justice to say, they make no distinction between foreigners and natives. Without all doubt a man cannot be much worse lodged and ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... arms. Recent proceedings in the courts of the extreme Southern States have caused this fact to be keenly appreciated. The pirates who sailed the slavers "Echo" and "Wanderer" yet remain to be punished. So far as South Carolina and Georgia are concerned, the law declaring the slave-trade piracy is a dead letter; and the sentiment which prevails toward it in Charleston and Savannah is an imperfect index of that which is manifested at Salt Lake City toward all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... poignantly unhappy. He was fixed under the same roof with the man that had taken his love by piracy; he must greet him affably and reverently every day; he must live in daily contemplation of the time when he must meet Masanath also as his sovereign—the wife of the prince, whom he must serve ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... their book is good or bad, provided it sells well. How many young people have been ruined by bad books, and how many more by foolish books! Boys, for example, read in some worthless book of desperate deeds of highway robbery or piracy, and are at once filled with the desire to imitate the hero of the tale. Young girls, on the other hand, are equally infatuated by the wonderful fortunes and adventures of some young woman whose life has been so vividly described in a trashy novel. As the ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... to the surrender by the United States to Great Britain of Thomas Nash, charged with murder and piracy on the British ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... This promised to be interesting. The Brownell place was one of the delightful bugaboos of their childhood. Old Captain Brownell, a Yankee whaling skipper, was long since dead. The house had stood boarded up and untenanted for years. Tradition declared he had committed acts of piracy on the high seas during the period of his whaling voyages and that, having retired uncaught, he had come down to this secluded nook and built the great house in order to hide there from some of his old associates ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... we, my dear fellow?" the Master queried. "To seize a ship—a water-ship or one of the air matters nothing—and to overpower the crew, kill or wound a few, throw them outboard and sail away, comes pretty near constituting piracy. Of course the air-rules and laws aren't wholly settled yet; but we're in a fair way of giving the big-wigs a whacking precedent to govern the future. I fancy a good many cases will be judged as per the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... youthfulness of R. L. Stevenson. If, as Mr Baildon says (p. 30), he had true child's horror of being put in fine clothes in which one must sit still and be good, Prince Otto remains attractive in spite of some things and because of his fine clothes. Neither Poe nor Hawthorne could have fallen to the piracy, and treasure-hunting of The Master ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... would receive no message from men who were mere pirates and marauders, and it was scarcely satisfactory to those whom they intended to murder, because they were in arms for the defence of their Government and country, that their piracy would not ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... great nations were too much engaged fighting with each other to be at leisure to pay attention to it. Its rulers or Deys were most of them ignorant men, who had risen, in many cases, from the ranks of the janissaries or common Turkish soldiery, and its sole occupation was piracy—piracy ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Deming an' one or two others would have won it all. Then—he'd have the only gun—he'd shoot the lot of 'em an' say they died at sea. He ain't got enny more warm blood than a squid. Or he might land, and accuse 'em all of piracy. What do we care about his plans? He ain't ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... 15th and 17th centuries when its control extended over coastal areas of northwest Borneo and the southern Philippines. Brunei subsequently entered a period of decline brought on by internal strife over royal succession, colonial expansion of European powers, and piracy. In 1888, Brunei became a British protectorate; independence was achieved in 1984. The same family has ruled Brunei for over six centuries. Brunei benefits from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields, the source of one of the highest per capita ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... by the lieutenant, a page of history was blotted out from the memory of his listener. The vice-governatore had heard the name of Raoul Yvard, and even that of le Feu-Follet, which the malignancy of a bitter war had blackened nearly to the hues of piracy. The thought that he had been the dupe of this corsair—nay, that he had actually been entertaining him with honors and hospitality, within an hour—was almost too much for his philosophy. Men do not often ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... countenance this unlawful enterprise, whose headquarters were in Rio Medio, he was not the man for me. Though it was big enough to be made, by the papers at home, of political importance, it was, after all, neither more nor less than piracy. The idea of my turning a sort of Irish traitor was so extravagantly outrageous that now I could smile at the imbecility of that fellow O'Brien. As to turning into a sea-thief for lucre—my ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the command of Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, who is to be furnished with a copy of this letter authenticated by your signature, and to whom you will give written instructions, that he is first of all to cruise in the great Cuba channel, until the 14th proximo, for the prevention of piracy, and the suppression of the slave—trade carried on between the island of Cuba and the coast of Africa, and to detain and carry into Havanna, or Nassau, New Providence, all vessels having slaves on board, which he may have reason to believe have been shipped beyond the prescribed limits on the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... slavery in New England. They stole and sold property which it was not profitable to keep, and for which they now refuse all warranty. And what few American ships are in the trade now, at the peril of piracy, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... superhuman heroism of a nation in the higher interests of humanity, for the principle of human freedom. Their international influence is frequently exerted in the great causes of Christianity and civilization, first struggling as they did against piracy in the Mediterranean; then opening the doors of Japan to the commerce of the world in the Pacific, or fighting for the Armenians against Ottoman despotism, or intervening in behalf of the Jews against the tyranny of the Muscovite; here sympathizing with South America against ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... or to do any act which would contribute in any way to enable others to hold or deal in slaves. This simple declaration, if it stood alone, would make every act of slave-holding a misdemeanour, but the Acts themselves make it piracy, felony, or misdemeanour, as the case may be, to do any of the acts declared to be unlawful. These Acts further declare that persons holden in servitude as pledges or pawns for debt shall, for the purpose of the Slave Trade Acts, be ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... to put on record that this plan of Queen Pauline the First proved a great success, for, from that day forward, Malines and Morris and all the other conspirators became excellent members of the community—gave up all ideas of piracy on the high seas, set to work like men to fence in their properties, cultivate their farms, prosecute their fisheries, and otherwise to make themselves useful. Another result was that Silver Bay Settlement began ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... Brundusium, and, steering down the middle of the Adriatic gulf, because he dreaded, on the left hand, the coasts of Italy destitute of harbours, and, on the right, the Illyrians, Liburnians, and Istrians, nations of savages, and noted in general for piracy, he passed on to the coasts of the Venetians. Here, having landed a small party to explore the country, and being informed that a narrow beach stretched along the shore, beyond which were marshes, overflowed by the tides; ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... statement about the "policy of nations" and "the security of the high seas," he descended by degrees to the crime of barratry—or, in plainer English, the theft of ships. He looked at barratry from every side, and the more he looked the less he seemed to like it. It was the cradle of piracy; it destroyed the confidence of owners; barratry, if frequently repeated, would shake the whole commercial structure. A person who committed barratry would commit anything. In this manner he went on and on, reviewing the evidence of the case, destroying the whole fabric of the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... "I won't deny it and I can't believe it. I'll go about my business of piracy. But you, sir," he turned to Morgan, "you've got to keep Gwenlyn ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... can't, you know," he protested laughingly. "I believe that piracy is no longer looked upon with favor by the more solid members of any community. Though plank-walking is an idea to keep in mind when the bill collectors start to draw in ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... He's got the finest library on piracy in the world, everything from The Pirates of Penzance to The Life ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... when he killed the usurper Abdul Mubin in Bruni. In 1773 a small settlement was formed on the island of Balambangan, north of Bruni; and in the following year the Sultan of Bruni agreed to give this settlement a monopoly of the pepper trade in return for protection from piracy. In the next year, however, Balambangan was surprised and captured by the Sulus. It was reoccupied for a few months in 1803, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... by these wretches reduced to the same condition Virgil was, when the centurion seized on his estate. But I don't doubt but I can fix upon the Maecenas of the present age, that will retrieve them from it. But, whatever effect this piracy may have upon us, it contributed very much to the advantage of Mr. Philips: it helped him to a reputation which he neither desired nor expected, and to the honour of being put upon a work of which he did not think himself capable; but the event showed his ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... violence to the person, or which tend directly to endanger life. It was proposed that capital offences should be reduced to—1st, high treason; 2nd, murder; 3rd, attempt to murder; 4th, burnings of buildings or ships; 5th, piracy; 6th, burglary; 7th, robbery; 8th, rape. Arson, piracy, burglary, and robbery were to be capital offences only when committed under circumstances or accompanied by acts directly calculated to endanger life. The setting fire to stacks would be no longer a capital offence: the crime, his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... McFadden, and got him. Now, look at it. One woman, no better'n I am, has had the property of eight women and a half, and here I am single and getting on in life, with the chances growing absurdly small. No civilized country ought to tolerate such a thing. It's worse than piracy. You may scuttle a ship or blow her up or run her against the rocks, and no great harm is done, because timber's plenty and you can build another one. But when one woman scuttles three men and then ties to a fourth, what are you going to do about it? You can't go out ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... materially from each other. Great Sooloo, the residence of the sultan, is very mountainous. Many of the mountains are wooded to the summit, while others are covered with patches of cultivation. These islands are thickly populated; and if the islanders do not practise piracy as a profession, they are always ready to aid, assist, and protect those who do. The town of Sooloo is well known to be the principal rendezvous of pirates, who, whenever they have made a capture, resort there to dispose of their lawless booty. The ministers, and even the sultan himself, are ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... heavier and proportionate armament. The LADY ARBELLA, Winthrop's ship, a vessel of 350 tons, carried "twenty-eight pieces of ordnance;" but as "Admiral" of the fleet, at a time when there was a state of war with others, and much piracy, she would presumably mount more than a proportionate weight of metal, especially as she convoyed smaller and lightly armed vessels, and carried much value. There is no reason to suppose that the MAY-FLOWER, in her excessively crowded condition, mounted more than eight or ten ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... replied the Governor gently. "These wide and beautiful waters invite the adventurous mariner and if piracy appealed to me at all I'd rather enjoy levying tribute upon the unprotected ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... say with perjured lips, "We fight to make the ocean free"? You, whose black trail of butchered ships Bestrews the bed of every sea Where German submarines have wrought Their horrors! Have you never thought,— What you call freedom, men call piracy! ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... Wales!" It was in vain that I remonstrated with his eloquent horrors, at the thought of renewing his travels at government cost: he insisted that my proposal might actually have ensured the catastrophe; and from this appeal to my feelings, passed to a bold invective against literary piracy, and concluded by a generous compromise in favour of the cotton-bales, if I would pardon the warm expressions with which he found himself compelled to decline my extraordinary commission. You should have seen him, Godfrey! If ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Barbary States, Tunis and Tripoli. The island not affording sufficient food, strenuous efforts had to be made by him and Ball to get grain from Sicily and elsewhere, a matter very difficult of accomplishment even were the transit unmolested; but these petty Mussulman states, for the purposes of piracy, kept themselves in formal war with Naples and Portugal, and frequently captured vessels under the Sicilian flag carrying corn to Malta. The British had too much on hand now to spare readily the force necessary to put down these depredators, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... pestilence. When Spain overthrew the Moors she took the coast-cities of Morocco and Algeria. Afterward, when Aruch Barbarossa, the "Friend of the Sea," had seized the Algerian strongholds as a prize for the Turks, and his system of piracy was devastating the Mediterranean, Spain with other countries suffered, and we have a vivid picture of an Algerine bagnio and bagnio-keeper from the pen of the illustrious prisoner Cervantes. "Our spirits failed" (he writes) ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... on the gibbet. He was hanged for piracy at Port Royal, Jamaica. Jack," said Nanny, seizing my hand, and pressing it in her long fingers, "this is a secret; recollect, a secret deep as the grave; promise me, as ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... history as the Arrow War. A few years before a number of Chinese, who owned a boat called the Arrow, had it registered in Hongkong and hence were allowed to sail under the British flag. There is no question I think but that these Chinese were committing acts of piracy, and as this was one of the causes of disturbance on that southern coast for centuries past, the viceroy decided to rid the country of this pest. Nine days after the time for which the boat had been registered, but while it continued ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... provisions against the slave trade, which are among the earliest in history. A curious survival of mediaeval festivity still exists in the "Moresca," a kind of Pyrrhic dance, danced on national festas, which is a reminiscence of the days of Algerian piracy. There are twenty-four dancers, and the leaders, the standard-bearer, and the "bula," who is the spouse of the Moorish king. The performers are divided into two bands, one representing Christians (in ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... letters of October and November last. Captain Lee carried no prize into Bilboa with him, and the question turned simply on the complaint of the English Consul, charging him with having committed acts of piracy on the high seas in making prizes of English vessels. The commissary or governor of the port detained his vessel and sent to Court for directions, and received orders to set the vessel at liberty; which orders were accompanied with a general declaration, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," said Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy," ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... so disreputable to all concerned, and so characteristic of the fidelity with which the business of "Uncle Sam" is managed, was not confined to the detention and destruction of the poor orphan's letters, but to the piracy of their ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... styled is not apparent; indeed the supposition seems not a little ridiculous." {301a} Of course, if the players were the possessors, "grand" is merely a jeer, by a person advertising a successful piracy. And in regard to Tieck's conjecture that James I is alluded to as "the grand possessor, for whom the play was expressly written," {301b} the autocratic James was very capable of ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... authority to define offenses against the law of nations does not mean that in every case Congress must undertake to codify that law or mark its precise boundaries before prescribing punishments for infractions thereof. An act punishing "the crime of piracy, as defined by the law of nations" was held to be an appropriate exercise of the constitutional authority to "define and punish" the offense, since it adopted by reference the sufficiently precise definition of International Law.[1196] Similarly, in Ex parte Quirin,[1197] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... a pretext for the comparison in the fact that the two sovereigns took a lively interest in each other's affairs. Moulay-Ismael sent several embassies to treat with Louis XIV on the eternal question of piracy and the ransom of Christian captives, and the two rulers were continually exchanging ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... can get a boat owned, manned and operated by Solar League people. The boat's a dreadful-looking old tub, but she's sound and fast. The gang who own her are pretty notorious characters—suspected of smuggling, piracy, and what not—but they'll keep their ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire |
