"Piratical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannot go back from my word." Verres perceived that soft words would be useless, and took at once another line. The King, he said, must leave Sicily before nightfall. The public safety demanded it. He had heard of a piratical expedition which was on its way from Syria to the province, and that his departure was necessary. Antiochus had no choice but to obey; but before he went he publicly protested in the market-place of Syracuse against the wrong that had ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... eastern Mediterranean before the immense rush of the crusades crowded tumultuously over its quays and many bridges. Its variety of industry, and its commercial connections, turned that vast movement into another source of wealth. It rose rapidly to that naval supremacy which enabled it to capture piratical vessels and wealthy galleons, to seize or sack Ionian cities, to storm Byzantium, and make the south of Greece its suburb. Its manufactures were multiplied. Its dockyards were thronged with busy workmen. Its ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... aid; how the fleet set out ("Ha! Dex, tant bon destrier i ot mis!"); how Zara is besieged and taken; of the pact made with Alexius to divert the host to Constantinople; of the voyage thither after the Pope's absolution for the slightly piratical and not in the least crusading prise de Jadres has been obtained; of the dissensions and desertions at Corfu, and the arrival at the "Bras St Georges," the Sea of Marmora. This is what may ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... reference of any kind, merely placing upon paper the succession of thoughts which had been paramount in his mind for years. In the original document, as submitted by Jefferson, there appeared a stern condemnation of the "piratical warfare against human nature itself," as slavery was described. This was stricken out by Congress, and finally the document, as amended, was adopted by the vote of twelve colonies, New York declining ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... were made ready, in the name of the King. The body of the emigration was Huguenot, mingled with young nobles, restless, idle, and poor, with reckless artisans, and piratical sailors from the Norman and Breton seaports. They put to sea from Havre on the twelfth of July, 1555, and early in November saw the shores of Brazil. Entering the harbor of Rio Janeiro, then called Ganabara, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... was a much smaller craft, a schooner, standing from the eastward for the islands. Another look at her a little later showed me that she was of the same size and appearance as that of the craft whose piratical crew had attacked us. I felt, indeed, convinced that she was the same. On coming down on deck I told the captain, unable, however, to conjecture what he would do. At first I thought it possible that he might make chase, and attempt to capture her; ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... been very long inhabited. On one side of it they show caves, into which the rude nations of the first ages retreated from the weather. These dreary vaults might have had other uses. There is still a cavity near the house called the oar-cave, in which the seamen, after one of those piratical expeditions, which in rougher times were very frequent, used, as tradition tells, to hide their oars. This hollow was near the sea, that nothing so necessary might be far to be fetched; and it was secret, that enemies, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden. The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large war. They jeered the piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... of war, like its inception, can only be brought about by a new collocation of material forces. As the suppression of some nest of piratical tribes by a great emperor substitutes judicial for military sanctions among them, so the conquest of all warring nations by some imperial people could alone establish general peace. The Romans approached ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Sir Robert Holmes, which, by a flagrant violation of every international right, seized the Dutch fort. The balance of wrong was thus roughly reversed. By an act of unwarrantable violence the Duke of York had fixed upon his own nation the burden of maintaining what amounted to piratical aggression; and he had done it—as Clarendon is obliged to allow—"without any authority, and without a shadow of justice," [Footnote: Letter to Downing, October 28th, 1664.]—solely in satisfaction of his own private rights as a company promoter. Clarendon's diplomacy was, of a ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... fresh prizes to add to his immense fortune. The merchant marine of Great Britain dreaded his ship, the Sea Rover, more than the whole American navy. Lane was one of the most expert seamen on the ocean, and might have had a high office in the regular navy, had he not found this semi-piratical ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... us knew what the African flag was, although Corny suggested that it was probably black. But I told her that if we raised a black flag before the queen's palace, we should bring down the authorities on us, sure. They'd think we had started a retail piratical establishment. ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... water-works, for the brook had to be dammed up, that a shallow ocean might be made, where Ben's piratical "Red Rover," with the black flag, might chase and capture Bab's smart frigate, "Queen," while the "Bounding Betsey," laden with lumber, safely sailed from Kennebunkport to Massachusetts Bay. Thorny, from his chair, was chief-engineer, and directed ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Carl showed her how thin sheets of ice formed on the bank of the stream and jutted out like shelves in an elfin cupboard, delicate and curious-edged as Venetian glass; and how, through an opening in the ice, she could spy upon a secret world of clear water, not dead from winter, but alive with piratical black bugs over sand of exquisitely pale gray, like Lilliputian submarines in a ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... new settlements for an expanding population. Greek traditions spoke of the movement as a consequence of the Trojan war, and delighted to dwell on the voyages of its heroes into unknown seas, of the piratical descents to which it led, and of the colonies which were planted by it. The Philistine occupation of southern Palestine was one of ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... evidence adduced to prove that they made any endeavour to proselytize the natives as the Spaniards did. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that some idols, lost by the Chinese in shipwreck and piratical attacks, have been, and still are, revered by the natives as authenticated miraculous images of Christian Saints (vide "Holy Child of Cebu" and "Our Lady ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... own childhood was happy because I lived purely in a world of the imagination. There never was a bolder or more truly noble pirate than I was during the hour of the Sunday sermon, when I whiled away the good clergyman's discourse by sweeping the seas in my piratical schooner, and harrowing the Spanish Main. My tin soldiers were flesh and blood heroes, my kites flew nearly to the outer limits of the solar system, and I never quite lost the belief that I could dig a tunnel to China with the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to call the Northmen mere corsairs, or even to class them with piratical states such as Cilicia of old, or Barbary in more recent times. Their invasions were rather to be regarded as an after-act of the great migration of the Germanic tribes, one of the last waves of the flood which overwhelmed the Roman Empire, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... or Nemtor, as it was called in the Celtic language, kept watch during the night over the camp, village, and sea, preserving the Gaulish frontier from piratical incursions. ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... furious; and that the Berlin newspapers burst out in denunciations of Italy's wicked and piratical land-grabbing—a morsel of rhetoric following so hard upon the heels of the Morocco episode that it gave joy to all who delight in hearing the pot rail at the kettle. "The great game" is not without its humors. But the sardonic joke of the business lies deeper than all this. The Kaiser ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... binnacle. In spite of his personal filth, in spite of the lawless, almost piratical, character of the man, in that moment I could not but admire him. If Percy Darrow was ignorant of the purposes of this expedition, how much more so Captain Selover. Yet he accepted his trust blindly, and as far as ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... really the low material dangers of small-pox, quartain ague, or robbers which troubled the Elizabethan. Such considerations were beneath his heroical temper. Sir Edward Winsor, warned against the piratical Gulf of Malta, writes: "And for that it should not be said an Englishman to come so far to see Malta, and to have turned backe againe, I determined rather making my sepulker of that Golfe."[99] It was the sort of danger that weakened character which made people doubt the ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... is made of women, and it is not probable that any went over with the first colonists. The character of the men was not high. Many of them were "gentlemen" adventurers, turbulent spirits, who would not work, who were much better fitted for piratical maraudings than the labor of founding a state. The historian must agree with the impression conveyed by Smith, that it was poor material out of which to make ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... whole story was given for the first time at full length in Mr. Elwin's edition of Pope, and the revelation borders upon the incredible. How Pope became for a time two men; how in one character he worked upon the wretched Curll through mysterious emissaries until the piratical bookseller undertook to publish the letters already privately printed by Pope himself; how Pope in his other character protested vehemently against the publication and disavowed all complicity in the preparations; how he set ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to America, trading for some time with the natives, and bringing hides, seal-skins, and sandal-wood to the Chinamen; and at last, having made a successful voyage, we were on our homeward passage, when yonder piratical craft fell in with us. Each man had been promised a share of the profits, so that we had something to fight for. Fight our poor fellows did, till there was scarcely one of them left unhurt. We none of us thought of striking, though; ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... from one side and from the other. They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... comprehending an examination of his works," which had been commissioned by the "London Magazine." It was his first essay in the study of German literature, which he did so much to popularise in Britain. It appeared in book form in 1825, and a second edition was published in 1845 in order to prevent piratical reprints. In his introduction to the second edition, Carlyle pleads for the indulgence of the reader, asking him to remember constantly that "it was written twenty years ago." It has indeed been superseded by more temperate studies of Schiller, but its tone ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and tranquillity. A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was stationed upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as well as with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred supplied the defects ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... word of advice to inexperienced collectors. Avoid the jolie edition printed at Paris by F. A. Didot, par ordre de monseigneur le comte d'Artois, in 1781. It is the very worst specimen of editorship. Avoid also the London edition of 1792. The preface is a piratical pasticcio; the verbose notes are from the most accessible books; the portraits, very unequal in point of execution, I believe to be chiefly copies of prints—not d'apres des tableaux originaux. The most desirable editions are, 1. The edition of 1760; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... years war had existed between Portugal and Algiers. In consequence of this Algerian cruisers had been confined to the Mediterranean by a Portuguese fleet, and the commerce of the United States, as well as that of Portugal herself, had been protected in the Atlantic from piratical depredations. In September, 1793, an unexpected truce for a year was concluded between Portugal and Algiers. The Dey's cruisers, therefore, immediately, and without previous notice, passed into the Atlantic, and American ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... father—of the consequent chagrin of the younger brother—of his infamous design, and the manner it had been carried into execution. How Don Antonio, returning from the wars in Mexico, with his band of piratical adventurers, had landed in a boat upon the beach at Ensenada—how he had entered the chateau, and with the help of his two subordinate villains had abstracted the Countess and her infant—himself Fabian—how the assassination of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for Struck out. suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... positively affirmed is that during the summer of 1617, Jacques Pierre, a Norman by birth, whose youth had been spent in piratical enterprises in the Levantine seas, from which he had acquired no inconsiderable celebrity, fled from the service of the Spanish Duke d'Ossuna, Viceroy of Naples; and, having offered himself at the Arsenal of Venice, was engaged there in a subordinate office. Not many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... puzzle is rendered more perplexing still by the fact that Shakespeare took no pains to enlighten posterity as to the identity of the youth he praises, or even to supervise the publication of the sonnets. Thorpe's piratical edition was full of misprints, but Shakespeare, so far as we know, took no notice of it, and made no attempt, by giving the world a correct and authentic version, to secure what his verses declare him to be anxious to bring about, viz., ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... subject afterwards on shore, Murray learned that a large fleet of piratical junks were said to be commanded by an Englishman, but little was known about them, except from the depredations they committed on the Chinese merchant shipping, and occasionally on that of other nations, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... several centuries old, vrijbuiter, or free vessel or boat. It got somehow into English as "freebooter," and into Spanish as filibustero. The original referred to piracy. Two or three centuries later, it meant an engagement in unauthorized and illegal warfare against foreign States, in effect, piratical invasions. In time, it came into use to describe the supply of military material to revolutionists, and finally to obstruction in legislative proceedings. In his message of June 13, 1870, President Grant said that "the duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... took the view of the common men upon every occasion, claiming that the interests of the many were superior to the privileges of the few. In a word, Crassus, if you could imagine a free-booting Gracchus on one side, and two piratical Patricians upon the other, you would understand the effect which my companions ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... harbor for Mexico, a heavy schooner is filled with the best attainable fittings for a piratical cruise. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and his chips strew the snow all about. He knows what is in there, and the mice know that he knows; hence their apparent consternation. They have rushed wildly about over the snow, and, I doubt not, have given the piratical red squirrel a piece of their minds. A few yards away the mice have a hole down into the snow, which perhaps leads to some snug den under the ground. Hither they may have been slyly removing their stores while the squirrel was at work with his back turned. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... immense fleet of junks and a force of upwards of twenty thousand men, invaded the country near Macao, cut all the ripe rice, and carried it off, as well as a great number of women, whom he presented to his followers. In vain did the viceroy attack the piratical fleet,—he was defeated in every engagement, and the affair was only terminated by making Apo-Tsy governor of the province of Fokien, and pardoning all his followers! Matters however did not stop here; in some of his battles, Apo-Tsy ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... awarded $15,500,000 in gold for the vessels and cargoes destroyed by the Alabama, with her tender; the Florida, with her three tenders, and the Shenandoah, or Sea King, during a part of her piratical career. England promptly paid the award, and learned for the third time in her history that the rights and interests of the American people were not to be trampled on with impunity. The United ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... marry, With the little back-shop that such tradesmen carry, Stocked with brooches, ribbons, and rings, Spectacles, razors, and other odd things For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings; A chapman for goodness and cheapness of ware, Held a fair dealer enough at a fair, But deemed a piratical sort of invader By him we dub the "regular trader," Who—luring the passengers in as they pass By lamps, gay panels, and mouldings of brass, And windows with only one huge pane of glass, And his name in gilt characters, German or Roman ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... power at the time of the great mobilisation, the military heads somehow overlooked one group who, for their sins, should have been sent up where bullets and Huns were thickest. The slum gave up its Apache—and a magnificent fighter he is said to have made too! And the piratical cab drivers who formerly infested the boulevards must have answered the summons almost to a man, because only a few of them are left nowadays, and they mainly wear markings to prove they have served in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible error of ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... been freshening while he spoke, and now came down in a series of squalls that caused the piratical-looking craft to lie over as if she were about to capsize. The vessel which they were pursuing also bent over to the breeze and crowded all sail; for well did Francisco, its owner and padrone, know, from past experience, that Algerine corsairs were fast ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... reconnoitred by order of the government, in the territory of the Sallentines—the Spartan -condottiere- embarked with his mercenaries and surprised the island of Corcyra, which was admirably situated as a basis for piratical expeditions against Greece and Italy. Thus abandoned by their general, and at the same time deprived of their allies in central Italy, the Tarentines and their Italian allies, the Lucanians and Sallentines, had now no course left but to solicit an accommodation with Rome, which appears ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the lesser gods, who keep the celestial "accounts," how many times the swaggering, bully-ragging, brawling, piratical, and murderous human family has swept around this globe. Here and there relics of their status, their growth in the external, material conditions of life are being exhumed, wrung from the faithful clasp of Mother Earth, ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... coxswain and three others, who were unwilling to accompany them, in Pitt Water in Broken Bay. Those men proceeded overland to Port Jackson, where they gave the first information of this daring and piratical transaction. Two boats, well manned and armed, were immediately dispatched after them, under the command of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... the air on the Golden Bough from that very first day or the voyage. I was soon to learn that there was plenty of rebellious spirit forward, and shrewd, daring fellows eager to lead, because of piratical greed. Also, she was a hell-ship. It was part of a hell-ship's routine to thump the crew to the raw edge of mutiny, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... not be easily induced to incur the positive loss and probable disgrace that would follow from a Russian invasion, like that which took place in 1759. As to England, the Emperor would be mad to attempt her conquest; and he knows too well what is due to his fame to engage in a piratical dash at London. An invasion of England can never be safely undertaken except by some power that is master of the seas; and England is not in the least disposed to abandon her maritime supremacy. There would have to be a Battle of Actium before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... it may not be logically deducible from his examination of the arguments of other critics; but on the whole the book is a remarkably able study. Though Farmer speaks expressly of acquitting "our great poet of all piratical depredations on the Ancients," his purpose has often been misunderstood, or at least misrepresented. He aimed at giving Shakespeare the greater commendation, but certain critics of the earlier half of the nineteenth century would have it that he had tried ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... fancy of the skull—of letting fall a bullet through the skull's eye—was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a kind of poetical consistency in recovering his money ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... corner of the globe would reverberate with the sound of African oppression; so loud would be our complaint, and so "feeling our appeal" to the inhabitants of the world at large. We should represent them as a lawless, piratical set of unprincipled robbers, plunderers and villains, who basely prostituted the superior power and information, which God had given them for worthy purposes to the vilest of all ends. We should not hesitate to say that they made use of those advantages only to infringe upon every dictate of justice; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... juicy melons and keeps such a nice, amiable pet dog," laughed Jack, roaring at the recollection of the piratical expedition of which the island dweller ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... face to face on this continent. From then till now, these antagonisms have struggled in incessant conflict. Two years since, the slaveocracy, true to their instincts of violence, after long and secret plotting, crowned their perfidy by perjury, by piratical seizures of Government property that cost $100,000,000, and then ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the history of the piratical states of Barbary, printed in 1750, said to be wrote by a person who resided at Algiers, in a public character, at page 265 the author says, "The world exclaims against the Algerines for their cruel treatment of their slaves, and their employing even tortures to convert them to mahometism: ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... ashore, to get prows, to lighten the vessel. We had but eight men before the mast, and six aft. This, of course, left only nine souls on board. That night nothing occurred; but, in the morning early, two piratical prows approached, and showed a disposition to board us. Mr. Croes was the person who saved the ship. He stuck up handspikes, and other objects, about deck; putting hats and caps on them, so as to make us appear very strong-handed. At the same time, we got a couple of sixes ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... library-shelf; and we remember a certain dog's-eared copy of the "Conquest of Granada" which once upon a time set all the boys of a certain school agog with a martial furor. How we shook our javelins at some bewildered cow blundering into the play-ground! What piratical forays we made upon the neighbors' orchards, after the manner of the brave old Muley Aben Hassan! And as for the Alhambra, the tinkle of the water in the marble basins of its court is lingering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... dirty evasion to use his process, or such parts as they like, without acknowledging him in it. I shall be glad to be able to be of any use to him. Watts fellow-feeling was naturally excited in favour of the plundered inventor, he himself having all his life been exposed to the attacks of like piratical assailants. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... and Pango, the Dagoes, and the surviving Sou'wegian were for tossing him overboard; but the rest of us wouldn't have it. There was no evidence of poison, and as we'd done no killing so far in our piratical venture, we'd better keep clear of it now, with so much at stake. A court that would acquit us as soldiers of fortune that had merely borrowed a schooner might hang us as pirates and murderers; but we watched the Jap. We kept him away ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... at ten o'clock that morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,—a menial act which in the pure Republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest piratical ambition. On the ridge they met one "Patsey," the son of a neighbour, sun burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red handed, like themselves. As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the Pirates of his own free will, or was ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... epoch of the Spanish Main. This hint is carried out in the sculptured figures in the alcoves above each arch. Allen Newman modeled them, giving to his work the dash and daring of the domineering conquistadors and piratical deckhands of those stirring days. The portal here pictured leads directly to the Esplanade near the Gardens adjoining ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... of all these proceedings gradually dawned upon the tardy intellects of Communipaw. These were the times of the notorious Captain Kidd, when the American harbors were the resorts of piratical adventurers of all kinds, who, under pretext of mercantile voyages, scoured the West Indies, made plundering descents upon the Spanish Main, visited even the remote Indian Seas, and then came to dispose of their booty, have their ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... had a fat duck in tow. The Okapi was backed full speed astern and the astonished fowl pulled on board before they knew what had happened. The geese sheered off at once, speaking to each other in subdued tones, but in the next quarter of an hour three more ducks were added to the bag. Then a piratical craft appeared in the very thick of the peaceful convoy, opened its broadside, as it were, and engulfed a couple. There was a swirl in the water, a resounding smack made by a long scaley tail, and a third fowl went the way of the others. Beating their wings, the duck rose with loud quacks ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... importunity of his viceroy demanded. Fugitives, whom their country rejected, sought a new home on the ocean, and turned to the ships of their enemy to satisfy the cravings both of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were now formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected out of piratical vessels; out of morasses arose a republic. Seven provinces threw off the yoke at the same time, to form a new, youthful state, powerful by its waters and its union and despair. A solemn decree of the whole nation deposed the tyrant, and the Spanish name was erased ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the young California grandee, dark and dashing and reckless, lithe of figure, thoroughbred, ardent. His eyes were sparkling at the prospect of excitement; not only had the Russians, by their nefarious appropriation of the northwestern corner of the continent and a recent piratical excursion in pursuit of otter, inspired the Spanish Government with a profound disapproval and mistrust, but a rumor had run up the coast that made every sea-gull look like the herald of a hostile ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... — things about books and little Indian beasts and natives, and there is another digression to the subject of "English v. British Union, and the Imperial Idea," and a sail over the Bay with a piratical (looking) crew, to the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... handkerchief around his head and the haft of a knife protruding from his waistband. The rowers behind him, though of varying degrees of swarthiness and height, all had the same sinewy build, the same bold stare, the same devil-may-care insolence of manner; and though none but the lookout wore the piratical red around his brow, more than one knife hilt showed at their waists. The steersman, whose copper-brown skin and flat face betokened a heavy strain of Indian blood, gazed stolidly at the Americans with the unwinking, expressionless eyes of ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... mark their passage. The city of Belgrade was known until the seventh century A.D. by its Celtic name of Singidunum. Naissus, the modern Nish, is also possibly of Celtic origin. It was towards 230 B.C. that Rome came into contact with Illyricum, owing to the piratical proclivities of its inhabitants, but for a long time it only controlled the Dalmatian coast, so called after the Delmati or Dalmati, an Illyrian tribe. The reason for this was the formidable character of the mountains of Illyria, which run in several parallel and almost ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... apprised of the situation. It was the intention of the mate and crew to murder him and the Captain and put the vessel about for a piratical cruise in the Indian Ocean. They were a motley gang of foreigners, low bred and capable of any crime when led by a man like the mate, fresh from a career of lawlessness on ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... walls. And the Miser is as good as a Scotch Trapbois, till he becomes homicidal, and then one fails to recognise him unless he is a little mad, like that other frantic uncle in "The Merry Men." The scenes on the ship, with the boy who is murdered, are better—I think more real—than the scenes of piratical life in "The Master of Ballantrae." The fight in the Round House, even if it were exaggerated, would be redeemed by the "Song of the Sword of Alan." As to Alan Breck himself, with his valour and vanity, his good heart, his good conceit of himself, his ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... the whole room heaved and swelled with them; Septimus, with his mild blue eyes and upstanding hair, looking like the conventional picture of one who sees a ghost; Hegisippe Cruchot, the outrageousness of whose piratical kit contrasted with his suavity of manner, sitting with military precision on a straight-backed chair; and Madame Bolivard standing in a far corner of the room; her bare arms crossed above her blue apron, and watching the scene with an air of kindly proprietorship. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... occasion to fell one of the men and evade the other. But this plan scarce promised success, for the house was situate in the sugar plantation, and doubtless many negroes would be at work, and the overseer would be at hand, with possibly others of the piratical dogs whom Vetch had brought up from ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... till goaded to the utmost she drove them from her bosom; Greece, bankrupt, apathetic, and ungrateful; a Greek port blockaded by the ships of her first defender, and her vessels held in pawn for the payment of a miserable debt; Greece, piratical, dissembling, and rebellious, aiding in her weak and greedy ambition the worst enemy of Europe—so runs the story—but Greek deliverance not yet. Her joint occupation by French and English forces, and the possible imposition of a provisional government, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... occurred, and the string broke, or a ducking kite dragged down the rest, or the wind suddenly died out, their kites fell into the Pit, from which place they were unrecoverable. The reason for this was the young people of the Pit were a piratical and robber race with peculiar ideas of ownership ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... in the clash with France, and also in a war with Tripoli in 1801-1805. At that time the Christian nations whose ships sailed the Mediterranean Sea were accustomed to pay annual tribute to Tripoli and other piratical states on the north coast of Africa, under pain of having their ships seized and their sailors reduced to slavery. A dispute with the United States led to a war which gained for our ships the freedom of ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... administer the law upon these fellows. It was discovered, one evening, as the shades of a black and rather tempestuous night were closing upon the mighty "father of waters" and his ancient banks, that a mysterious voyageur, or sort of piratical vidette, was seen in his light canoe, hugging the shore, either for ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... very few of the girls knew where Judy was. When she went out for her walks after dusk she wore a heavy veil and thoroughly enjoyed the disguise. One night the old crowd gave her a surprise party which Edith had carefully planned. Dressed in absurd piratical costumes with skirts draped over one shoulder in the semblance of capes, brilliant sashes around their waists, many varieties of slouch hats and heavy black mustaches, they stormed Judy's room ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... had recently returned from Dantzic, whither he had been sent as exile four years before by Christiern. He had disembarked at Kalmar, and still remained there under custody of Mehlen. In this state of affairs the piratical Norby conceived the project of marrying Christina, and then of conjuring with the name of Sture to drive Gustavus out of Sweden. To this bold scheme Christina apparently gave her consent. At all events, the news of her projected marriage was spread abroad, and nothing was done on ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... at peace with most of the piratical states of Barbary, will find an excellent market for their fish in the Mediterranean. This circumstance may induce congress to pay some attention to the hints thrown out by Dr. Belknap, in his Account of the American Newfoundland Fishery, which ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... republic—ingrates, educated at her own military schools—have impiously defied her lawful authority, and sometimes assailed her with unnatural triumph over her arms; while foreign capital, subsidized by prospective piratical plunder, has filled the ocean with daring cruisers to destroy her commerce, and thus to weaken the right hand of her power. Feathers from the wing of her own eagle have plumed the arrows directed at her heart; while the barb has been ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... experienced a sort of political awakening: a "boss" we had was more than ordinarily piratical. I think he had a scheme to steal the city hall and sell the monuments in the park (something of that sort), and I, for one, was disturbed. For a time I really wanted to bear a man's part in helping to correct the abuses, only I did not know how and ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... year's expedition. There are still some nests of pirates in the north of Borneo, although of late the Spaniards have done much to exterminate them. But when Sir James Brooke first visited Sarawak, the nobles there, and their sultan at Bruni, used to permit, nay, encourage, piratical raids against their own subjects at a little distance, provided they shared in the profits of the expedition, thus impoverishing the country they ruled, and putting a stop to all native trade—a short-sighted and wicked ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... ugly wound in cutting out a piratical junk in the Indian seas," said Murray. "It was a near thing for him, and the doctors insisted on his returning home as the only chance of saving his life; so he wrote me word in a few lines. But he is not much addicted to letter-writing; I, therefore, know no ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... "The Boston News-Letter," August 21, 1721, shows how in early times piratical craft, heavily manned and carrying many guns, sailed the high seas and pursued their unlawful calling. The vessel was taken somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, off the ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... fifty years ago, and wintered on the low point there by the St. Charles; here, nearly a century after, but still fourteen years before the landing at Plymouth, Champlain founded the missionary city of Quebec; round this rocky beak came sailing the half-piratical armament of the Calvinist Kirks in 1629, and seized Quebec in the interest of the English, holding it three years; in the Lower Town, yonder, first landed the coldly welcomed Jesuits, who came with the returning French and made Quebec forever eloquent of their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... child,—who must fight till the day of your death with alien, opposite forces, because the blood-vessels of Nancy Elkins, as they sail through the grand canals of the city of your life, so often hang out piratical banners, and bear down on better craft as they near the dangerous places, or put out, like wreckers after a storm, seeking for treasure the owners somehow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... by the other. Stampede stretched himself, groaned, and stood up. He was a little man, and his fiercely bristling red whiskers, wet with dew, were luxuriant enough for a giant. His head of tawny hair, bristling like his whiskers, added to the piratical effect of him above the neck, but below that part of his anatomy there was little to strike fear into the hearts of humanity. Some people smiled when they looked at him. Others, not knowing their man, laughed outright. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... dissensions were in progress at Pekin the Chinese were growing more daring and confident in their efforts to liberate themselves from the foreign yoke. They had adopted red bonnets as the mark of their patriotic league, and on the sea the piratical confederacy of Fangkue Chin vanquished and destroyed such navy as the Mongols ever possessed. But in open and regular fighting on land the supremacy of the Mongols was still incontestable, and a minister, named Toto, restored the sinking fortunes of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... been repaired and paid over under the beneficent and glorious administration of President Jackson. But one single instance of outrage has occurred, and that at the extremities of the world, and by a piratical horde, amenable to no law but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel. Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the influence that mild government has upon the manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western. Far from our having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis or Makasar people. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... from the point at which these instructions are read to the mouth of the Caribbean Sea, in the hope of encountering the French frigate La Gloire (48), which has recently harassed our merchant ships in that quarter. H.M. frigates are also directed to hunt down the piratical craft known sometimes as the Slapping Sal and sometimes as the Hairy Hudson, which has plundered the British ships as per margin, inflicting barbarities upon their crews. She is a small brig, carrying ten light guns, with one twenty-four pound ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brief account of Drake's life would fill a small encyclopaedia. The story of his first ruin off Vera Cruz, of his campaign of vengeance, of his piratical voyage to the Pacific, of his doings with the California Indians, of his fight in the Armada—any one of these would fill an ordinary volume. Only that part of his life bearing on American exploration has been given here, and ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... himself. This war was only too like the other great wars of European history. The French Government had become political, exactly in the same sense in which Thugut and Metternich and Herzberg were political. The French Republic in 1797 was neither more nor less aggressive, immoral, piratical, than the monarchies which had partitioned Poland, and had intended to redistribute the continent of Europe to suit their own ambitions. The Coalition began the game, but France proved too strong for them, and they ...
— Burke • John Morley
... his most constant customers was James Freeman, the half-piratical owner and skipper of the "Blue Crane." This queer little barkentine, of light tonnage but wonderful sailing qualities, is remembered in every port between Sitka and Callao. All sorts of strange stories are told of her exploits, but these ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... that it is not very long since a piratical party of Chinese, shipping as steerage passengers on board one of these Hong Kong river steamers, massacred the officers and captured the boat. On board this great, white, deck-above-deck American steamer there is but ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... shore, and piracy and slave-dealing afloat—and left to his heir, who has worthily taken up and carried on his work, the unique inheritance of a settled Eastern Kingdom, inhabited by the once dreaded head-hunting Dyaks and piratical Mahomedan Malays, the government of whom now rests absolutely in the hands of its one paternally despotic white ruler, or Raja. Sarawak, although not yet formally proclaimed a British Protectorate,[2] may thus be deemed the first permanent British possession in Borneo. Sir JAMES BROOKE ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... and shivered over the ballad of 'Ralph the Rover,' who, hoping doubtless that the wrecked ships might fall into his own piratical hands, cut the bell which the good monks of Aberbrothock had placed on the fatal rock, and who, by merited justice, was for lack of the bell himself, on his return voyage, lost on that very spot! What boy has not loved the story of one of the greatest engineering ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... thought I had better come up with Charley, since I was woke up. Hullo! what is that?" he added, glancing astern at the felucca, which was now almost within speaking distance, and coming on as if she were going to sheer alongside. "What the deuce is that piratical-looking craft running us aboard like that for? If I were you, Mr Tompkins, I would signal them to stand off, and call up the captain and the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... anything of the sort," said Ferrers.... "And, depend upon it, the said gentlemen, at this hour of the night, unless they were on some piratical excursion—for they were cursed ruffians, those old Greek colonists—were ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his successful rival at Canterbury; he escapes, but in crossing the sea for Gaul, is taken by the piratical Picts, carried to Scotland, and condemned to a rigorous and lifelong slavery. Leoline and Guinessa are married, and Hengist becoming paramount in Kent, assigns to them a castle with ample domains in the Isle of Thanet; and in sailing along the coast they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... to his work a bumblebee approached on its glad, piratical errand from flower to flower in the rapt stillness, and Feller looked around with a slight courtesy of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... raise taxes; enact this very tariff, which has driven her out of the Union, in order to enable her to raise money, and to sustain the attitude of an independent power. If she should have no force, no navy to protect her, she would be exposed to piratical incursions. Their neighbor, St. Domingo, might pour down a horde of pirates on her borders, and desolate her plantations. She must have her embassies; therefore she must have a revenue. And, let me tell you, there is another consequence, an ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... peaceful winters, when the warriors feasted and listened to the tales of the scalds, rousing themselves to energetic efforts only when returning spring again permitted them to launch their dragon ships and set out once more upon their favorite piratical expeditions. In the olden story the bards relate with great gusto every phase of attack and defense during cruise and raid, describe every blow given and received, and spare us none of carnage, or lurid flames which envelop both enemies and ships in common ruin. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... brought the Narrangansett in. The moment the anchor was down, an armed boat's crew dashed aboard the Leonora and took possession. The officer in command had a surprise in store for him, when, entering the brig's cabin, he saw seated at the table not the truculent, piratical ruffian he expected to see, but a quiet, stout man of herculean proportions, who bowed politely and said, "Welcome on board the Leonora, sir. Have you come to seize my ship and myself? Well now, ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... afraid," said Mr. Osgood, slowly, "that I am not very expert in the manufacture of noxious piratical chemicals. You will have to seek your ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... provide against casualties. Seventeen men walked the plank, rather than join us, and after that we made the necessary transfer of stores and other material, and sank our old vessel. We were now ready and well equipped for our piratical undertaking, and we started at once on our ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... province, the capital of which was the restored and Romanised city of Carthage, had been for generations the chief exporter of corn to feed the pauperised population of Rome, and here now dwelt and ruled, and from hence (428-432) sallied forth to his piratical raids against Italy, the deadliest enemy of the Roman name, the king of the Vandals, Gaiseric.[44] The Vandal conquest of Africa was, at the time which we have now reached, a somewhat old story, nearly a generation having elapsed since it occurred,[45] but the Vandal sack of Rome, which came to ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... The climax to Germany's piratical submarine adventure took place a few days after the armistice, when a mournful procession of shamefaced-looking U-boats sailed between lines of English cruisers to be handed over to the tender mercies of ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... assented Laurence, with something between a sneer and a laugh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Yet that same crowd of respectable swindlers would yelp in horror at us and our enterprise. 'Piratical,' they'd call it, eh? A ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... for it left the divided liberals to face an opposition of equal strength, whenever the conservatives, anti-revolutionaries and Catholics acted together. This same year saw the first phase of the war with the piratical state of Achin. An expedition of 3600 men under General Koehler was sent out against the defiant sultan in April, 1873, but suffered disaster, the General himself dying of disease. A second stronger expedition under ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... sight of this beach recalled his boyhood! How many times had he and his brilliant mother wandered over these sands, picking up the many-colored stones, or baiting a young star-fish, or searching the caverns of the piratical Saracens that honeycombed the clifts, or yet, again, taking a hand at the nets! Sometimes he grew very lonely; for without a woman, either of one's blood or of one's choice, life holds little. Ah, that woman in the mask, that chimera ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... was his disrespectful paraphrase of "The Father of Waters," the title of the giant Mississippi. He told of his adventures until he mentioned the Silver Sides. Then he swore in a manner that suited his piratical countenance exactly. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... begins to roll she does it in earnest, but she is a fine sea boat, and I have no fear of gales. I wish I could say as much of pirates. However, she has always been fortunate, and as we carry a stout crew she could give a good account of herself against any of the small piratical vessels that swarm among the islands, although, of course, if she fell in with two or three of them ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing, making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, and this made the sight of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... toward this spot." To find an excuse, real or apparent, for its appropriation was the trouble. The Sultan of Lahidge, its owner, was indeed little better than a freebooter. But, though wild, lawless, and of piratical tendencies, he had for a long time the wisdom not to molest British traders. In 1839, however, whether from ignorance of its nationality, or from recklessness, is uncertain, he seized and pillaged a native Madras boat sailing under British colors. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his looks when he was in camp, and he certainly saw no reason to change his mind concerning the fellow now, for Stackpole did have a piratical appearance when he ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... of vibrant quality. It can not be read at a leisurely pace. It bears the reader through piratical seas and buccaneering adventures, through storm and stress of many sorts, but it lands him safely, and leads him ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in a sort of drum-head court-martial. I was not the only prisoner, and had an opportunity to hear the recitals of my fellows in luck. First and foremost of all was a huge, swaggering, black-bearded, gold-chain and scarlet-velvet-waistcoated, piratical-looking fellow, who announced himself as a Border Ruffian, of Virginia stock, and now visiting his relations near the Ferry; but he said that he had fought with the Southern Rights party in the Kansas war, and that when he heard of the "raid," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... been used to the society of ladies, and I cannot fashion my words to please them; and I won't, that's more!" he muttered to himself as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart that he was once more on the deck of his piratical ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... water, and when they had been put on board, the Arato was well fitted out for a long voyage. Leaving the Miranda on the beach, with nothing in her of much value, the Arato, which had cleared for Callao, and afterwards set out on a wild piratical cruise, now made a third start, and set sail for a voyage to France. They had good weather and tolerably fair winds, and before they entered the Straits of Magellan the captain had formulated a plan for ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... the time, bo; but now, as that feller is a follering us astern, in course, I thinks on it. There're a lot of them piratical rascals in these waters; but you should go to the back of Hainan to see 'em in their glory, the little creeks and bays there fairly swarms ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... color of attacking these irregular publications. Notwithstanding, however, this colorable plea, this House has in some instances proceeded to punish the persons who have thus insulted it. You will here, too, remark, Sir, that, when a complaint is made of a piratical edition of a work, the authenticity of the original work is admitted, and whoever attacks the matter of the work itself in these unauthorized publications does not attack it less than if he had attacked it in an edition ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... miscellaneous poems. By Robert Southwell whose initials appear on the titlepage of some of the later editions. The first edition was probably that published the same year as printed by I[ames]. R[oberts]. for G[abriel]. C[awood]. and of which the present appears to be a piratical reprint. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... exists, though overlaid by a mass of fiction. It probably was the first important maritime expedition, and like the first attempts of the kind of all nations, as we know from history, was probably of a half-piratical character. If rich spoils were the result it was enough to give rise to the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... that pressure had been for the most part veiled by diplomacy, while Britain's retort was patent and notorious. Consequently, every version of this incident that was based merely on newspaper reports condemned her conduct as brutally piratical; and only those who have delved into archives have discovered the real facts of the case.[330] Napoleon's letter to the King of Spain quoted on p. 437 shows that even before the war he was seeking to drag him into hostilities with England, and he continued to exert ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... delay on the coast, carried their own version of our mission to Mexico, and had reported to the Mexican Government, both personally and by letter, that Lord Cochrane had possessed himself of the Chilian Navy,—plundered the vessels belonging to Peru,—was now on a piratical cruise,—and was coming to ravage the coast of Mexico; hence the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... and joined the other, and both stood for the land; we however judged it necessary to be prepared for them all the succeeding night: they might have been trading vessels, but as they can conceal their numbers, and as we knew that these seas are infested with piratical vessels of that description, it was necessary for us ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... reading—protected any vessel carrying it. American ships, however, were peculiarly the prey of the Algerians, and many an American sailor was sold by them into slavery until Decatur and Rodgers in 1805 thrashed the piratical states of North Africa into recognition of American power. In 1794, however, the Americans were not eager for war, and diplomats strove to arrange a treaty which would protect American shipping, while Congress prudently ordered the beginning of six frigates, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot |
