"Spanking breeze" Quotes from Famous Books
... fortnight afterwards, the Corregidor, a small island at the mouth of Manilla Bay, hove in sight. On our arriving abreast of it, a gun-boat came out to board us, and inquire after our bill of health; but as we had a spanking breeze, and men-of-war do not heave-to to be boarded, the gun-boat returned to the island as wise as she came out. Manilla Bay is of immense size, being thirty miles deep, and twenty wide. Near the mouth of the Bay the land is high, but at the head, where ... — Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... however, gives way to the wind of the afternoon, which, complete master of the situation by three o'clock P.M., holds stormy sway till sunset. No gentle zephyr this, to softly sway the delicate flower or just lift the fringe on the maiden's brow, but what seamen call a "spanking breeze," that does not hesitate to knock off the hat that is not fastened tightly both fore and aft to the underlying head, or to fling sand and dust into any exposed eye, and which dances around generally among skirts and coat-tails with untiring energy and persistency. ... — California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... of the brig. Within a quarter of an hour the Englishmen had all been transferred to the Louis Treize, and an officer and half a dozen men left in charge of the prize. The Frenchman at once set a course for Dunkirk, and, with a spanking breeze behind her, she made the port in fifteen hours. The noon of the next day saw George Fairburn and his companions clapped into ... — With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead |