"Piracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hanseatic League of the Rhine district in the fourteenth century extended over the whole commercial radius of Germany, Prussia, Russia, the Netherlands, and Britain. It opened up new fields of commerce, manufacture, and industry. It paved the way for culture, it subdued the piracy which had existed in the Baltic, and it promoted a universal peace. On the other hand, it created jealousy; it boycotted the honest manufacturer and merchant who did not belong to the League, and fostered luxury in the Rhenish cities, which did much to sap the sturdy character of the people. The ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... 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 ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... of the Indian Seas. 2. Socotra and its former Christianity. 3. Piracy at Socotra. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... to 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! ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... 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 ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... four per cent. a month out of the unfortunates who might ask his aid, and he was seen to start for town with a bag which his neighbors thought to hold his crop of starveling turnips, but which was really a king's ransom in gold and jewels—the earnings of Captain Kidd in long years of honest piracy. It was in Governor Belcher's time, and cash was scarce. Merchants and professional men as well as the thriftless went to Tom for money, and, as he always had it, his business grew until he seemed to have a mortgage on half the men ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... is an island, called Patiras, formerly the abode of a pirate, called Monstri, whose depredations were so extensive that the parliament of Bordeaux was obliged to send a considerable naval force to put him down. But Monstri was not the only depredator who found the Gironde a fitting theatre for his piracy. Amongst all that coquinaille,—as Mezeray designates the notorious Free Companies who, after their services were no longer required to drive the English from the recovered realm of Charles VII., ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... he cried. "If we ship them in a boat, the seizure will be piracy. If they intercept those arms, they're pirates, and we can legally call on the Federal forces—and they'll be compelled ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... when the east wind brings the gannets and porpoises close inshore, the 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 ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... that puts you to sleep. There are a lot of old men out in the almshouse just because they trusted too much in human nature; and I wanted to show you how hard and cruel men can be and excuse their piracy on the plea that it is business! I tell you, Matt Peasley, when you've lived as long as I have you'll know men for the swine they are whenever they see some real ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... were always built upon points of land, on the margin of the sea. For the choice of this situation there must have been some general reason, which the change of manners has left in obscurity. They were of no use in the days of piracy, as defences of the coast; for it was equally accessible in other places. Had they been sea-marks or light-houses, they would have been of more use to the invader than the natives, who could want no such directions of their own waters: for a watch-tower, a cottage ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... wheat corners and all that, and catch the poor people and take their money from them! Charity is love. But your idea of charity makes me pity you. Up here I find a man can pile up hundreds of millions by stifling competition, by debauching legislatures, by piracy and legalized theft, and then give a tenth of it to found a university, and so atone for his crimes. That is called charity. Oh, I know a lot about such things! I've been studying and thinking a great deal since I came to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... States, sometimes a Spanish general temporarily retired, sometimes a Viceroy of the Indies who had sought a more elevated position in the air. Sometimes he possessed millions, thanks to successful razzias in the aeronef, and he had been proclaimed for piracy. Sometimes he had been ruined by making the aeronef, and had been forced to fly aloft to escape from his creditors. As to knowing if he were going to stop anywhere, no! But if he thought of going to the moon, and found there a convenient anchorage, he would anchor there! "Eh! Fry! My ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... themselves 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 offensive remarks, and to aim entirely at the expulsion of the free people of color; their lugubrious ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... each state to legislate on the subject within its limits; but it imposes on us no obligation to add to the evils of the system by countenancing the traffic between the states. That which our laws have solemnly pronounced to be piracy in our foreign intercourse, no sophistry can make honorable or justifiable in a domestic form. For a proof of the feelings which this traffic naturally inspires, we need but refer to the universal execration in which the slave-dealer is held in those portions of the country where the institution ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Government have announced their intention to sink merchant vessels at sight with their non-combatant crews, cargoes, and papers, a proceeding hitherto regarded by the opinion of the world not as war, but piracy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the abstract, more than in any practical evil under which they were suffering, we may mention the extension of the principles of free trade, the abolition of private warfare on the ocean, the denunciation of the African slave trade as piracy, &c. as propositions by which our country has endeavoured to discharge its duty in the great family of nations. From a people thus naturally disposed, what may not be expected? What circumstances of accident or temporary advantage will be able ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... though petty, were numerous and cruel. The vanquished suffered death or slavery. Piracy, flourishing upon the unprotected seas, ranked as an honorable occupation. It was no insult to inquire of a seafaring stranger whether he was pirate or merchant. Murders were frequent. The murderer had to dread, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Fred, now losing all control of himself. "It wasn't a trade at all! It's piracy! It's highway robbery! It was a ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... the Corsair appeared in January 1839, but apparently piracy was not always a lucrative trade, for the paper had an existence of little more than a year. In the course of its brief career, however, Willis paid a flying visit to England, where he accomplished ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... accuse me of piracy; I have a complete answer to that charge; but as an Englishman I claim an Englishman's right—a fair trial before a jury of my countrymen. In any case, Mr. Clive, it would be invidious to give me worse treatment than Monaji Angria and his officers. As for the rest, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... noted, when a student in this very Groningen where he had now found his grave, for the youthful profligacy of his character. After dissipating his partrimony, he had taken to the sea, the legalized piracy of the mortal struggle with Spain offering a welcome refuge to spendthrifts like himself. In common with many a banished noble of ancient birth and broken fortunes, the riotous student became a successful corsair, and it ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... subject, and legislators were concerned with purposes that interested a larger number of voters. There were too few authors to be of much value at the polls, and even of those few only a small percentage were vitally concerned. For the others, foreign publishers rarely paid them the compliment of piracy, while at home the copyright limit of forty-two years was about forty-two times as long as they needed protection. Bliss suggested a law making the selling of pirated books a penal offense, a plan with a promising look, but which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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
... have received information of your whereabouts," said Mr. Forbes, "has called on me to-day, and the facts he has laid before me demand your earnest consideration. He is assured that the treasure-hunting expedition you have joined is a compound of piracy and rascality, in which Mr. Fenshawe is a dupe, having been misled by a man who has incurred the gravest suspicion of felony. The Italian Government is taking steps to procure this person's arrest, and, whether or not the charges brought against ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... shipping. Alan answered the invitation by repairing to Leith in person with all speed. The nature of the service offered, however, did not accord with his ideas of honourable warfare; in fact, he considered it more akin to piracy, and not such as a gentleman should take part in. He had no affection, he said, for clerkship, but he had still less for the life of ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... understandings of the same size, to seize upon our whole plan, without changing even the title. Some weak objections were, indeed, made by one of them against the design, as having an air of servility, dishonesty, and piracy; but it was concluded that all these imputations might be avoided by giving the picture of St. Paul's instead of St. John's gate; it was, however, thought indispensably necessary to add, printed in St. John's street, though there was then no ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... effect of this mission of the Camellia Buds was a decided improvement in the conditions of the juniors. Next morning, at lunch-time, a stern-faced contingent mounted guard over the biscuits, and when Bertha and Mabel, plainly bent on piracy, sauntered down the room, they were told certain unpalatable home truths, and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Indians when to advocate their cause was to displease many. He was one of the earliest opponents of the slave-trade and slavery. He omitted no opportunity to protest against war and its iniquity, and he branded as piracy the custom of privateering, however sanctioned by international usages. As a statesman and philosopher his name is imperishable. As an active benefactor of his race, he is entitled to its lasting gratitude. ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... brave 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 Persian crown, That dare ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... by the burning of the Dey's entire war-squadron of nine ships. This sufficed not only for Tunis, but also for Tripoli and Algiers. All the Moorish powers of the African coast gave up their English captives, and engaged that there should be no more piracy upon English vessels. Malta, Venice, Toulon, Marseilles, and various Spanish ports were then visited for one reason or another; and in the autumn of 1655 Blake was still in the Mediterranean for ulterior purposes, understood between ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Quarter we may indeed give in this sense, that even those villains shall not be killed in cold blood if they are willing to surrender. But every man that we take prisoner shall most assuredly be tried for his life for piracy and murder upon the high seas. Will you be so good as to tell those men from me that if they at once surrender the person of Cornelys Jensen and their own weapons they shall be treated humanely, kept in decent confinement, and shall have the benefit of their conduct when the time for trial ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, which may be seen in Martin's Account of his Consulship, anno 1687. It was against granting the petition of a sect called Erika, or Purists, who prayed for the abolition of piracy and slavery as being unjust. Mr. Jackson does not quote it; perhaps he has not seen it. If, therefore, some of its reasonings are to be found in his eloquent speech, it may only show that men's interests and intellects operate, and are operated on, with surprising similarity, in all countries ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... that early in Queen Victoria's reign Great Britain engaged in a war with Persia, and landed troops at Bushire in assertion of their rights. Ever since they have policed the Persian Gulf, put down piracy, slave and gun-running, and lighted the places dangerous to navigation. These interests having been entrusted to the Government of India, news affecting them seldom finds its way into Western papers. Previous to the war a line of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... he proved to be of the greatest assistance. Charley and I knew nothing of the oyster industry, while his head was an encyclopaedia of facts concerning it. Also, within an hour or so, he was able to bring to us a Greek boy of seventeen or eighteen who knew thoroughly well the ins and outs of oyster piracy. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... Fraser about printers and a second edition of the Revolution Book,—as specified in the other Letter: five hundred copies for America, which are to cost he computes about 2/7, and your Bookseller will bind them, and defy Piracy. My Lectures come on, this day two weeks: O Heaven! I cannot "speak"; I can only gasp and writhe and stutter, a spectacle to gods and fashionables,—being forced to it by want of money. In five weeks I shall be free, and then—! Shall it be Switzerland, shall it be Scotland, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... A combination of Grand Larceny and Piracy, involving the destruction of the Constitution and Declaration ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... the charm to give them virtue and notice in the world, they are thus driven to various, dishonorable means to obtain it. Multitudes are driven to the crimes of counterfeiting, theft, and even robbery and piracy. They commence their wretched course, with the intention to abandon it, as soon as a competent fortune is obtained. Other thousands are driven to gambling; and even those, who are called respectable, take every possible advantage in trade and bargaining. ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... little girl, to whom the fact of piracy was a sublimated sort of existence in which she had not considered it would be necessary to think of ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... John about his wonderful cave. The charted treasure caves. Seeing the treasure in the cave on the hill where the boys were rescued. An occupied cave. The medicine men. The two entrances and the cross-shaped interior. How the hoards were acquired. Piracy on the high seas. The gold and silver of the world. The precious metals taken to Europe by the Spaniards. Rushing work on the preparations. The gun barrels. Chief showing the boys how to make and use the bows. The disappearance ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... set on a hair-trigger, have made more than one man bold, genuine and honest. Draw the bow far enough this way, and your arrow will go a long way that. Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself, and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life. In the Spanish Court, Velasquez found life a lie, public manners an exaggeration, etiquette a pretense, and all the emotions put up in sealed cans. Fashionable Society is usually ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... 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
... pleasant meals and pleasant talks with pleasant companions; he enjoyed a little gambling at the tables; and he enjoyed with a childlike zest playing with Dorothy and the children, displaying latent and unsuspected talents for piracy, brigandage, and conspiracy, which were no less a glory than a surprise to him. Indeed, at times he was very like a young schoolboy let ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... "As to piracy, if the things that are whispered as to their cruelty to the natives be true, pirates are an innocent and kindly folk compared to them. They openly proclaim that all found in these seas, which they claim as their own, will be treated as enemies and slain ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... such dealing, 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 deemed and construed to be slaves, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... and mature consideration may suggest, there can be little doubt that under an energetic administration of its affairs the Navy may soon be made every thing that the nation wishes it to be. Its efficiency in the suppression of piracy in the West India seas, and wherever its squadrons have been employed in securing the interests of the country, will appear from the report of the Secretary, to which I refer you for other interesting details. Among these I would bespeak the attention of Congress for the views presented ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... right, and we must be thankful for the good stuff we have, as it is. How far will the law bear us out in knocking men on the head in such an undertaking? It's peace for America, and we must steer clear of piracy!" ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... you that the supercargo, named Jerome Cornelis, formerly an apothecary at Haarlem, had conspired with the pilot and some others, when off the coast of Africa, to obtain possession of the ship and take her to Dunkirk, or to avail themselves of her for the purpose of piracy. This supercargo remained upon the wreck ten days after the vessel had struck, having discovered no means of reaching the shore. He even passed two days upon the mainmast, which floated, and having from thence got ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... been a celebrated Leaguer and brigand. From the year 1597 he had held, in the name of the Duc de Mercoeur, the fort of Douarnenez in Brittany, and the island of Tristain in which it is situated. Since that period he had continually been guilty of acts of piracy upon the English, and had even extended his system of theft and murder indiscriminately both on sea and land. He might, had he been willing so to do, have profited by the benefit of the edict accorded to the Duc de Mercoeur in 1598, but he affected to hold ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... commerce. It will be for our courts of justice to decide whether under such circumstances these Mexican letters of marque and reprisal shall protect those who accept them, and commit robberies upon the high seas under their authority, from the pains and penalties of piracy. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... entered on board of a Portuguese slave-vessel, and continued some time employed in this notorious traffic, which tends so much to demoralise and harden the heart. After several voyages, he headed a mutiny, murdered the captain and those who were not a party to the scheme, and commenced a career of piracy, which had been very successful, from the superior sailing of the vessel, and the courage of the hardened villains he had collected ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... of the court of Alexandria had faded and vanished; even after the wars against Mithridates and the growth of piracy had ruined the traffic of the AEgean Sea, the Alexandrian worship was too deeply rooted in the soil of Greece to perish, although it became endangered in certain seaports like Delos. Of all the gods of the Orient, Isis and ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... about lawful, my son, but I see no warrant whatsoever for it; and as for heathen, indeed, it appears to me that the attacks upon him do touch, very closely, upon piracy upon the high seas. However, as the country in general appeareth to approve of it, and as it is said that the queen's most gracious majesty doth gladly hear of the beating of the Spaniards, in those seas, it becometh not me to question ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... rising, the English ministry had been powerless to check the depredations of the pirates, which had become intolerable both in the East and West Indies. Now Europe was at peace, and measures could be concerted to put a stop to the evil. As usual, the Peace of Utrecht was followed by an increase of piracy, through the privateersmen being thrown ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... it, privateering was a congenial pursuit—so much so, unhappily, that when the war ended, and a treaty robbed their calling of its guise of lawfulness, too many of them still continued it, braving the penalties of piracy for the sake of its gains. But during the period of the Revolution privateering did the struggling young nation two services—it sorely harassed the enemy, and it kept alive the seafaring zeal and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the prisoners die of loss of blood and so cheat them of the money for which they meant to sell them, they bound up their wounds and went on their way of destruction and pillage. After four or five days of piracy on the high seas, they started, laden with plunder, for the coast of Barbary, noted throughout the world at that time as a stronghold of sea robbers ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... except by armed force. But in carrying out this purpose he still endeavoured to avoid any declaration of war. De Ruyter and the English Admiral Lawson were now cruising in the Mediterranean, on a joint expedition, for suppression of piracy, and for releasing the captives of Tunis and Algiers. De Ruyter secretly separated himself from his English ally, sailed for Cape Verde, and there took vengeance for the English aggression on the trading operations of the Dutch. It was an open breach of the stipulation of the Treaty, which ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... liberal form of government—one that will bear the scrutiny of reason—one that in time may extinguish crime, and render poverty a thing of the past—one that is not a patent usurpation and a robbery—a robbery perhaps more criminal in the eyes of God than waylaying on the highroad, or piracy on the high seas—more criminal, because more extensive in its fatal effects. Anglo-Saxons wish to destroy despotism, lest they or their descendants might again become what their ancestors once were—its ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... harbours of refuge in time of war. She authorized protection to "a distance on the ocean as far as the eye of man could reach." This act of grace was cancelled by George the Third, who regarded it as a premium on piracy. In Cromwell's time Admiral Blake had been instructed to raise the siege of Castle Cornet. He brought its commander to his senses, but only after nine years of assault, and not before 30,000 cannon-balls had been hurled into ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... that go down to the sea in ships, Though piracy be their trade, For all that they pray not much with their lips They know where the storms are made: With the stars above and the sharks below, They need not parson or clerk; But our bo'sun Bill was an atheist ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... 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 ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the result of his views of Christianity, as taken from the divine writings, there can be little doubt. If he had stood upon the same eminence, and beheld the same sights previously to his conversion, he might, like others, have neither thought piracy dishonourable, nor ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... I can tell you that we Boers knew very well that we would have been acting within our rights if we had shot Jameson and every man he had with him, because his was not an act of war—it was an act of piracy; and had we done so, and England had attempted to avenge the deed, half the civilised world would have ranged themselves on our side; but we did not seek those men's blood; we gave them quarter as soon as they asked for it, and after that, though ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... to seize a bottle once in a while, something after the manner of privateers; though I believe the trade of privateering is regarded as piracy, now-a-days. How times are changed! We were to go on this expedition in rotation, from the oldest downward. We commenced, and two of us had performed the feat. It came George Reese's turn next. You didn't know George, I suppose. But I wish you had known him. I think you ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... fitted out and manned under the direction of Banker, but with the one which sailed from Marseilles he had nothing to do. This expedition was organized by men who had quarrelled with him and his associates, and it was through the dissension of the opposing parties in this intended piracy that the detectives came to know ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... 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 ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... But in order that there will be no misunderstanding, I've turned to piracy for a change. Great sport! I've chartered the yacht for a short cruise." His banter turned into cold, precise tones. Cunningham went on: "No nonsense, captain! I put this crew on board away back in New York. Those beads, though ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... 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 ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... new religion of Elsmere is, after all, only a system of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up a larger per cent. for the relief of its victims. The abolition of the system is not dreamed of. A civilized minority could not by any possibility be happy while a majority of the world were miserable. A civilized majority could ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the latter said, "they've got an idea of seizing the ship. The men I spoke of managed to get a few words with me this evening. They don't know anything about piracy. All they have heard is that there is a proposal to seize the ship and to carry her into one of the northern ports of Spain, where the men will land and give up their arms to the Spanish authorities, and then either disperse and make their way home by twos and ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... this is an unco ill-looking accusation they hae brought against you; kidnaping and slave-trading, na less—a sort of piracy, ye ken, lad! What hae ye ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... acting rights, both 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 Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... my firm conviction that Griffiths is a rogue, and that he treated me quite scurvily yesterday. 'Sign,' he says, 'sign in full, at the bottom, and date it,' And Jacobsen, the little rat, stood in with him. It was rank piracy, the days of Bully Hayes all ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... piracy experts. So you've come to Fleet Street at last, as I always said you would. Sneddon, let me introduce Mr. Grierson, an old colleague of mine on a short-lived paper in Shanghai. He knows more Chinese pirates than any man I ever met, not to mention gunrunners and opium smugglers; and he's perfectly ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... 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 ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... future reflection or better information might occasion him to suppress or amend. There are declarations and sentiments in the Abbe's piece, which, for my own part, I did not expect to find, and such as himself, on a revisal, might have seen occasion to change, but the anticipated piracy effectually prevented him the opportunity, and precipitated him into difficulties, which, had it not been for such ungenerous fraud, ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... forts of Seriff Housman, a notorious and daring pirate, whose crimes had paralysed the commerce of the seas of Borneo, and finally rendered British interference absolutely necessary for the security of British life and property. The action was one of the many that the suppression of piracy in these regions has demanded—was gallantly fought, and full reported in the journals of the time;—a narrow river, with two forts mounting eleven or twelve heavy guns, (and defended by from five hundred to one ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... first carried on with great secrecy, lest other makers should copy the art; and the precaution was taken of stopping the keyhole of the workshop-door while the casting was in progress. To secure himself against piracy, he proceeded to take out a patent for the process in the year 1708, and it was granted for the term of fourteen years. The recital of the patent is curious, as showing the backward state of English iron-founding at that time. It sets forth that "whereas ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... This piracy was repeated until the ship was crowded with negro men, women, and children. The poor things were packed like spoons below the deck. Then the ship set sail for the coast of America. I cannot tell you how horribly the poor negroes suffered. ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... refuse of all lands had been thrown to become a people that could never be a nation. The home supply of slaves, so familiar as to seem a product of the land, was becoming a mere trifle in comparison with the vast masses that were being thrust amongst the peasantry by war and piracy. At the time of the protest of Tiberius Gracchus against the dominance of slave labour in the fields scarcely two generations had elapsed since the great influx had begun. The Second Punic War had spread ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... officer with a worried hand-toss: "I must go. If you give me those documents, I will show them to the Captain—but he is not the sort of man—this is mere piracy, after all! But, good God, gentlemen, if you only dare touch that ship, I shouldn't put myself in your place this day week ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... improvements, and recognition of the South American republics. Presently, in order to preserve the balance of power between slavery and freedom, it was enacted that Maine was to be admitted on March 15, making twelve free and twelve slave holding States. A bill was passed pronouncing the maritime slave trade piracy. On October 20, Spain ratified the treaty ceding Florida. Congress reassembled in November. James Monroe and John Quincy Adams were the opposing candidates for the Presidency. Monroe received 231 electoral votes; Adams received one from a New Hampshire elector who voted in sympathy with a popular ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Algiers a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus, we see neither the ignorance of savages nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Shelley, and the whole edition was suppressed—not, however, before about one hundred copies had passed into circulation. To which of the collaborators this daring act of petty larceny was due, we know not; but we may be sure that Shelley satisfied Stockdale on the point of piracy, since the publisher saw no reason to break with him. On the 14th of November in the same year he issued Shelley's second novel from his press, and entered into negotiations with him for the publication of more poetry. The new romance was named ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... infusing his own turbulent spirit into the inhabitants of Kent island, he scattered jealousies among the natives, and persuaded them that "the new comers" were Spaniards, and enemies of the Virginians. Having been indicted, and found guilty of murder, piracy, and sedition, he fled from justice; whereupon his estate was seized and confiscated. Clayborne loudly denounced these proceedings as oppressive, and complained of them to his sovereign. At the same time, he prayed for a confirmation of his former ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... States while engaged in a lawful commerce, nothing is known to have occurred to impede or molest the enterprise of our citizens on that element, where it is so signally displayed. On learning this daring act of piracy, Commodore Reed proceeded immediately to the spot, and receiving no satisfaction, either in the surrender of the murderers or the restoration of the plundered property, inflicted severe and merited chastisement on ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... particular, displayed a resolute spirit. Diplomatic hints had no weight at Rome and one after another the Italian liners came into New York with trim three-inch pieces fore and aft. They had a most suggestive look and were manned by crews trained in the navy. Not since the days of open piracy had armed merchant ships been seen in American waters. Their presence recalled the time when every ship that sailed was prepared to fight or run as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... say the same of a successful pirate who could fare sumptuously from the effects of his piracy?" ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... societies and faction fights; death penalty for membership. Insurrection of Chinese, 1857. Chinese pepper and gambier planters. Exports—sago and jungle produce. Minerals—antimony, cinnabar, coal. Trade—agriculture. Description of the capital—Kuching. Sir Henry Keppel and Sir James Brooke. Piracy. 'Head money.' Charges against Sir J. Brooke. Recognition of Sarawak by United States and England. British protectorate. Death of Sir J. Brooke. Protestant and Roman Catholic Missions. Bishops MacDougal and Hose. Father Jackson. ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... I needed this wisdom, but keenly interested in mutiny, piracy, and such fancies of boyhood, I asked for light, and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... 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 Grey ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of murder than old-time pirates ever practiced. This is the warfare which destroyed Louvain and Dinant and hundreds of men, women, and children in Belgium. It is a warfare against innocent men, women, and children traveling on the ocean, and our own fellow-countrymen ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the interior is filled with vast forests and great mountain ranges, almost trackless to any but native feet. Besides, the absence of all just and stable government has reduced society to a state of chaos. And to all this must be added piracy, from time immemorial sweeping the sea and ravaging the land. Under such circumstances, if there were little opportunity for commerce, there was none for scientific investigations; and only by the enterprises of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... end at once to the traffic in human being; the Christian consciences of our forefathers revolted at its wickedness, and there was then beginning a general movement throughout the civilized world against it. Some European countries had denounced it as piracy. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... seemed to be licking his ugly chops at the thought of a future occasion when he might allow himself this luxury. Then he went on, half to himself it seemed. "Hm, Bonnet's a queer 'un! Never can tell what he'll do. Them eight men aboard that brig, now—never was a rougher piece o' piracy since Morgan's day than his makin' those beggars walk the plank. Stood there an' roared an' laughed, he did, an' pricked 'em behind till they tipped the board. An' then to stop us from drownin' a blasted little rat that'd tried to kill us all! Oh, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... an unknown island, ready to become a magazine for stolen cargoes? Had she come to find on the coast a sheltered port for the winter months? Was the settlers' honest domain destined to be transformed into an infamous refuge—the headquarters of the piracy of the Pacific? ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... very sweetly; his poisonous grace grew on him in his cups. Lockerbie, warmed by wine, was as simple—and charming—as a wart-hog. Old Maskell, who had seen wind-jammer days and ways and come very close, I suspected, to piracy, always prayed at least once. Pasquier, the successful merchant who imported finery for the ladies of Naapu, rolled out socialistic platitudes—he was always flanked, at the end of the feast, by two empty chairs. Little ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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
... "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 defense, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... letters of marque in the wars. But the step was a short one to a traffic still more profitable; and for a hundred years Jersey customs officers are said to have issued documents which were ostensibly letters of marque but which really abetted a piratical cruise. Piracy was, however, in those days a semi-legitimate offense, winked at by the authorities all through the colonial period; and respectable people and governors and officials of New York and North Carolina, it is said, secretly furnished ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... honourably acquitted; and Adair and Rogers rejoined the Racer, to which, to their great satisfaction, a short time afterwards Murray was appointed. The Racer, after a cruise to the westward, came back, and was ordered to proceed to the Greek Islands to assist in repressing piracy, an occupation to which the descendants of the heroes whose deeds were sung by Homer of old have of late ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... good and very gentle man"; but history shows his goodness and gentleness to have been of a rough and savage kind. The wild and stern experiences of his viking days lived again even in his attempts to reform and benefit his land. When he who had himself been a pirate tried to put down piracy, and he who had been a wild young robber sought to force all Norway to become Christian, he did these things in so fierce and cruel a way that at last his subjects rebelled, and King Canute came over with a great army to wrest the throne from him. On the bloody field of Stiklestad, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... heyday occurred between the 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. Brunei benefits from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields, the source of one of the highest per capita GDPs in the less developed countries. ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... that little affair on the beach. Since it's very probable that the vessel they send up to the seal islands would deliver stores along the coast, the folks in authority would have a record of it. They'd call the thing piracy—and, in a sense, they'd ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... of Hereward himself, having married, as did so many of the Celtic princes, the daughter of a Danish sea-rover, of Siward's blood. They told him also that the kinglet increased his wealth, not only by the sale of tin and of red cattle, but by a certain amount of autumnal piracy in company with his Danish brothers-in-law from Dublin and Waterford; and Hereward, who believed, with most Englishmen of the East Country, that Cornwall still produced a fair crop of giants, some of them with two and even three heads, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... human natar', seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other fellow-creatur'. Some think he was a free liver on the salt water, in his youth, and a companion of a sartain Kidd, who was hanged for piracy, long afore you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into these regions, thinking that the king's cruisers could never cross the mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper |
