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Plundering   /plˈəndərɪŋ/   Listen
Plundering

noun
1.
The act of stealing valuable things from a place.  Synonyms: pillage, pillaging.  "His plundering of the great authors"






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"Plundering" Quotes from Famous Books



... chance. They are quite in the habit of attacking stage-coaches, and plundering the passengers. ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... been in their town, but assured him that it had retired when the officers of Montezuma were arrested at Chiahuitztla, and earnestly entreated to be admitted into favour. Cortes gave immediate orders, forbidding the allies to advance; but they were already engaged in plundering the suburbs, at which Cortes was very angry, and ordering the Chempoallan captains into his presence, he reproached them for their misrepresentations, when their obvious purpose was to employ us, who were bound to prevent and redress injustice, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... the western counties, and great numbers of fishermen who found their old employment profitless were recruited into this new calling.[37] At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign we find these Anglo-Irish pirates venturing farther south, plundering treasure galleons off the coast of Spain, and cutting vessels out of the very ports of the Spanish king. Such outrages of course provoked reprisals, and the pirates, if caught, were sent to the galleys, rotted in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or, least of all, were burnt in the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... exception his crew was composed of Chinese, and these ran away at the first alarm. With his only Russian companion he attempted to defend his property, but the odds were too great, especially as his gun could not be found. He was made prisoner and compelled to witness the plundering of his cargo. Every thing valuable being taken, the thieves ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... an attack had been made on the plantation, that Senor Garcia had been killed, and that as I came up the gang was plundering the place and threatening to ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... came to the rescue of the situation with the Fifteenth Amendment and the Enforcement Laws of 1870-1871. With more troops and a larger number of deputy marshals, it seemed that the radicals might securely hold the remaining states. Arrests of conservatives were numerous, plundering was at its height, the Federal Government was interested and was friendly to the new Southern rulers, and the carpetbaggers and scalawags feasted, troubled only by the disposition of their Negro supporters to demand a share of the spoils. Although ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... of the French Government and its agents were seized and sold. The officers evinced a true Cossack disregard of the rights of private property. Counts Huhn, Buasenitz, and Venechtern, who had joined Tettenborn's staff, rendered themselves conspicuous by plundering the property of M. Pyonnier, the Director of the Customs, and M. Gonae, the Postmaster, and not a bottle of wine was left in their cellars. Tettenborn laid hands upon a sum of money, consisting of upwards of 4000 Louis in gold, belonging to M. Gonse, which had been lodged with M. Schwartz, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... also, the desert island off the Opuntian coast, was towards the end of this summer converted into a fortified post by the Athenians, in order to prevent privateers issuing from Opus and the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea. Such were the events of this summer after the return ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... sailed from Brundisium but had actually landed at Dyrrhachium. I anticipate that the job I have sent him on will take all of six years. Just about when your service is drawing to an end he will return to Rome covered with glory and loaded with loot. The nomads have been plundering our cities and have accumulated in their strongholds immense amounts of treasure. He'll get it back. Meantime your mind should be ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... Departure from Mourzouk. Gabrone. Medroosa. Tegerhy. Natives of Tegerhy. Skeletons of Slaves. Major Denham and the Skeletons. Slaughter of the Camels. Anay Sultan Tibboo. Kisbee. Tiggema. Dirkee. Plundering Arabs. Bilma. Female Natives of Bilma. Boo Khaloom, and Captain Lyon's Book. Surgical Skill of the Arabs. Aghadem. Tibboo Couriers. Beere Kashitery. Negro Shampooing. Gunda Tibboos. Mina Tahr. Arab Plunderers. Kofei. Traita ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... have but one rifle and little spirit and tea. I am not worth plundering, and Chief George must know that the law will take account of his doings, and that the grip of the law reaches right up to ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... command before Washington, incurred the hostility of certain officers of the convivial, plundering, swashbuckling order, who objected to his piety and orderliness. They tramped off to badger the President with their censure. But he who had appreciated the new leader in a ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... often happens that the nations adjacent to a plundering people are themselves spoilers when opportunity offers, and hence are imbued ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... Truth Teller, a journal that your honoured father once did us the favour to take—we have this moment heard of the atrocities committed on you, Captain Wallingford, by 'a brigand of a French piratical, picarooning, plundering vagabond,'" reading from what I dare say was another caption, prepared for the other side of the question; "a fresh instance of Gallic aggression, and republican, jacobinical insolence; atrocities that are of a character to awaken the indignation of every right-thinking American, and which ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... lawless men on both sides were committing the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the legitimate authorities were nominally at peace. The red men, whether engaged in what they deemed lawful warfare, or moving in plundering bands, were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the most dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white men could not retaliate by the perpetration of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... uncommon prudence and coolness of behaviour when he came into his kingdom; exhibiting no elation; reasonably doubtful whether he should not be turned out some day; looking upon himself only as a lodger, and making the most of his brief tenure of St. James's and Hampton Court; plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his German followers; but what could be expected of a sovereign who at home could sell his subjects at so many ducats per head, and made no scruple in so disposing of them? ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... infernal chicken thieves! We know what you are," replied Dan, who thought it best to class them with these depredators—men who frequent the western and southern rivers, plundering boats ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... his plundering, Shall here await the friendly night, Blinking whene'er he wakes, and wondering What ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... black.[33] The magistrates formally surrendered the city to Weitzel at the Capitol, which stands on a hill in the centre of the town, and overlooks the whole country for miles. The national commander at once set about restoring order and extinguishing the flames. Guards were established, plundering was stopped, the negroes were organized into a fire corps, and by night the force of the conflagration was subdued, the rioting was at an end, and the conquered city was rescued by the efforts of its captors from the evils which its own authorities had allowed, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... this, Tecumseh, with a party of chiefs and warriors, established his headquarters on a southern tributary of the Little Miami. From this point they made frequent inroads upon the property of white settlers, plundering flat-boats on the Ohio, and capturing some of the finest horses belonging to Kentuckians. It was here that Tecumseh had more than one encounter with Simon Kenton, the well-known American pioneer. Hearing ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... hills the swart Apache hunts along historic trails o'er which red cavalcades once swept to the plundering of Sonora's herds. His sires and their flashing pintos have vanished to other hunting-grounds, and he rides the boundaries of his scant heritage, wrapped in ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... Portuguese who came crowding into the fort. Two thousand of 'em, men, women, and children, filled the courtyard, sitting among their bundles of goods, so that we could scarce move for 'em. The enemy was in the town; they had set light to the Great Bazaar, and were burning and plundering in the native parts. We fired the bastis to the east and south, to deprive 'em of cover; and you may imagine the scene, Desmond—the blazing sky, the tears and screams of the women, the din of guns. We wrote to the French at Chandernagore begging 'em to lend us ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... of disciplined troops; and that the National Guard and volunteers were worse than useless, as they frequently ran at the first shot, and excited the hostility of the people, generally, by their habits of plundering. Nevertheless, the old soldier determined to resist to the last, however hopeless the conflict; and when the Vendeans approached, at six o'clock in the morning, they found that the bridge of Viennes was barricaded ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... Baboons, and their Plundering Excursions to the Gardens at the of Good Hope, Calsoaep about Le Vaillant's Baboon, Kees, and his Peculiarities; the American Monkeys; and relates an Amusing Story about a Young Monkey deprived ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... army being defeated, and he himself afterward beheaded, the English pursuing the victory, Cromwel and his men entered Scotland, by which means the engagers were not only made to yield, but quite dissipated. Whereupon some of the stragglers came west plundering, and took up their residence for some time in the muirs of Loudon, Egletham and Fenwick, which made the captain again bestir himself; and taking a party of Fenwick men he went in quest of them; and found some of them at a certain house in that parish called Lochgoin, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... to examine his position: 'Some ages ago,' says he, 'before the ferocity of the inhabitants of this part of the island was subdued, the utmost severity of the civil law was necessary, to restrain individuals from plundering each other. Thus, the man who intermeddled irregularly with the moveables of a person deceased, was subjected to all the debts of the deceased, without limitation. This makes a branch of the law of Scotland, known by the name of vitious intromission: ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... habit nor the taste of military subordination. The lofty conceptions of Hannibal surpassed his comprehension; he could not understand war, unless such as he himself carried it on—as a bold and rapid plundering excursion, of which the present moment reaped the whole advantage. He would have wished to march instantly on Rome, or at least to pass the winter in some of the allied or subject provinces—in Etruria or in Umbria—there to live at discretion in pillage and license. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... misfortune to be a clever man in the service of a stupid administration, and he met the fate usually meted out under such circumstances to men of ideas. Howe went off to the conquest of Philadelphia, Clinton made a brief burning and plundering raid up the river, and the northern invasion, which really had meaning, was left to its fate. It was a hard fate, but there was no escape. Outnumbered, beaten, and caught, Burgoyne surrendered. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... to-day!—But to finish my account of myself: I came here to Dinwiddie on the right of the army, and a week or two after my arrival the enemy made a cavalry raid toward the Southside railroad. I followed, and came up with them as they were plundering a house not far from Five Forks. Well, I charged and drove them into the woods—when, who should make her appearance at the door but Miss Conway, whom I had last seen in Culpeper! As you know, her father resides here—he ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... of heathens lived at the foot of the mountain. These men, desirous of war, often made raids on the neighbouring countries, carrying fire and sword among their Christian brothers. They once crossed the water, plundering the land and making prisoners of the people. Among the latter there was one most lovely maiden, whose beauty and grace inflamed two of the leaders so much, that each of them desired to have her for himself. One was called Horsrik the Elder, a famous chieftain, known ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... and facetious humours, that he met with a welcome reception; and was even introduced to the tent of Guthrum, their prince, where he remained some days [y]. He remarked the supine security of the Danes, their contempt of the English, their negligence in foraging and plundering, and their dissolute wasting of what they gained by rapine and violence. Encouraged by these favourable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to the most considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... Mynheer Krause, "I am loyal and thrown into prison, and am expected to be satisfied with the plea of being too hasty. My house is burnt down, and the plundering mob have been too hasty. Well—well—it is fortunate I took Ramsay's advice, my house and what was in it was a trifle; but if all my gold at Hamburgh and Frankfort, and in the charge of Ramsay had been there, and I had been made a beggar, all the satisfaction I should have received would ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... an effect ruinous to the whole campaign, as well as that particular attack. The assailing party, about thirty-four hundred men, were composed in the proportion of two Christians to one Mahometan. They had captured one half of the town; and, Mark Bozzaris having set this on fire to prevent plundering, the four Pachas were on the point of retreating under cover of the smoke. At that moment arrived a Mahometan of note, instigated by Kourshid, who was able to persuade those of his own faith that the Christians were not fighting with any sincere views of advantage to Ali, but with ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... above. Here this Mason, a man of gigantic stature, and of inferior education and intellect, had his concealed retreat, with two sons and several other desperadoes, organized into a band of land and water pirates. With great skill they prosecuted their robberies, plundering boats as they descended the river, but more often watching the return boats, to rob the owners of the money which they had received from ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... millions of sheep against a few select wolves. The revolution that was effected through the agency of Julius and Octavius was necessary for the continuance of civilization, which was threatened with extinction through the plundering processes of proprietors and proconsuls. The Roman Emperor was the shepherd, who, though he might shear his sheep close to their skins, and not unfrequently convert many of them into mutton, for his own profit or pleasure, would nevertheless protect them against the wolves. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... cruising after plunder and adventure in their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they appeared. It was these same "Children of Woden" who, under the Danes' raven flag, had blotted out Northumbrian civilization in the ninth century. Later the same race of men came plundering along the French coast and conquered the whole northern country; but here the results were altogether different. Instead of blotting out a superior civilization, as the Danes had done, they promptly abandoned their own. Their name of Normandy still clings ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... when General Jackson, with a force of about 15,000 men, composed of his own division, now commanded by General Winder, General Ewell's division, and a portion of that of General Hill, started for the Rapidan to check General Pope, who, plundering and wasting the country as he advanced, was marching south, his object being to reach Gordonsville, where he would cut the line of railway connecting Richmond with Western Virginia. Vincent was glad that the regiment ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... raised armed forces of their own and united in leagues, which later developed into the great Hanseatic League, more powerful than neighboring kings.[17] The anarchy spread to Italy. Bands of "Free Companies" roamed from place to place, plundering, fighting battles, storming walled cities, and at last the Pope sent thoroughly frightened word to Germany that the lords must elect an emperor to keep order or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... harried a dozen times. The bold Dacres, Liddells, and Howards, that could get easy absolution at York or Durham for any ordinary breach of a truce with the Scots, would have had to dree a heavy dole had they confessed plundering from the fat brothers, of the same order perhaps, whose lines had fallen to them on the wrong side of the Cheviot." He enlarged, too, on the heavy penalty which the Crown of Scotland had paid for its rash acquiescence in the wholesale robbery of the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... their reception on any terms. Thus when Speke arrived at a certain village, the natives shut their doors against him, "because they had never before seen a white man nor the tin boxes that the men were carrying: 'Who knows,' they said, 'but that these very boxes are the plundering Watuta transformed and come to kill us? You cannot be admitted.' No persuasion could avail with them, and the party had to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... voice the weak, the timid and the ailing; perpetrating, whenever it had an opportunity, that species of crime to which it has ever been most partial—deathbed robbery; for as it is cruel, so is it dastardly. Yes, it went on enlisting, plundering and uttering its terrible threats till—till it became, as it always does when left to itself, a fool, a very fool. Its plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might its insolence, had it been common insolence, but it—, and then the roar of indignation which arose from outraged England ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... as by something which threw hindrances in the way of the only dramatic entertainment the High Peak was likely to afford him, had learnt at last to join in them with relish. Many meetings with 'Lias on the moorside, which the old seer made alive for both of them—the plundering of 'Lias's books, whence he had drawn the brown 'Josephus' in his pocket—these had done more than anything else to stock the boy's head with its present strange jumble of knowledge and ideas. Knowledge, indeed, it scarcely was, but rather the materials for a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for several voyages after that. That scrap with the pirates never seemed to do him an awful lot of good. He had pirates on the brain anyway. You see, he come from Trinidad on the Spanish Main, where the old pirates used to do their plundering an' butchering, an' I s'pose he'd heard talk about their doings ever since ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... shoals of Mindoro made his escape from them, and his account undeceived the people of Manila. The governor despatched an armed fleet in command of Admiral Pedro Duran de Monforte, a soldier of long experience, but this remedy came too late; for the pirates, satiated with burning villages, plundering, and taking captives, had returned to their own country. Accordingly the armada, having vainly scouted along Luban, Mindoro, and Panay, returned to Manila, having accomplished nothing save the expenses which were caused for the royal exchequer, which is the paymaster for these and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... again are either such as effect secrecy; as theft, adultery, poisoning, pimping, kidnapping of slaves, assassination, false witness; or accompanied with open violence; as insult, bonds, death, plundering, maiming, foul ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... different points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and fired upon the boats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating battery, by means of which they killed and captured many ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... politics was believed to be dangerous to public welfare. All the mechanical reforms for the recovery of government by the people, that had been originated between 1889 and 1897, were revived once more, and there was added to confidence in them a widespread belief in the existence of a malevolent, plundering class. ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... brought in his camel; these were then arranged in a circle around the Arabs, one of the latter being mounted as sentry to prevent any sudden surprise—not indeed that they had the smallest fear of the Christians, who were far distant; but then, as now, the Arabs of the desert were a plundering race, and were ever ready to drive off each other's camels or horses. Cuthbert determined that if flight was possible, it must be undertaken during the interval after the arrival at the halting-place and before the bringing in ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... beginning of the new year. Dangerous illness. Kindness of Arabs. Complete helplessness. Arrive at Tanganyika. The Doctor is conveyed in canoes. Kasanga Islet. Cochin-China fowls. Reaches Ujiji. Receives some stores. Plundering hands. Slow recovery. Writes despatches. Refusal of Arabs to take letters. Thani bin Suellim. A den of slavers. Puzzling current in Lake Tanganyika. Letters sent off at last. Contemplates visiting the Manyuema. Arab depredations. Starts for new explorations in Manyuema, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... Grenville in the voyage of 1585 to Virginia. Frobisher's attempts inspired him with the ambition of the age. In 1586 he, too, sailed through the Straits of Magellan, burning and plundering Spanish ships, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Plymouth in 1588, having been gone about ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... was one that was founded on the landlady's story of his having a pile of gold; it was a ridiculous fancy; besides, I suspect the story of sweating gold was only one of the many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, in the first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they call the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... about the slave, but the poor Indian, who has been far worse treated than the slave was or ever will be. Only to think of the white people coming here, plundering their villages, and building on their hunting grounds, just as if it belonged to them, when all the while it was the Indians'. Now, if they had bought it and paid for it, honorably, as William Penn did, it would have been a different thing; but they got it meanly, ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various

... So in this manner by seizing for awhile the treasures of the darkness of this world, in whose slavery for a long time past thou hast been miserable, thou shalt by these means make good provision for thy journey, and by plundering another's goods thou shalt store all up for thyself, with things fleeting and transient purchasing for thyself things that are stable and enduring. Afterwards, God working with thee, thou shalt perceive the uncertainty and inconstancy of the world, and ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... shut out the law, made continual inroads upon each other, and spread war, rapine, burning, and desolation throughout the whole kingdom. They infested the highroads, and put a stop to all trade by plundering the merchants and travellers. Those who dwelt in the open country they forced into their castles, and after pillaging them of all their visible substance, these tyrants held them in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to extort a discovery of their hidden wealth. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Hood"; and efforts have been made to identify him with one of the dispossessed followers of Simon de Montfort, in "the Barons' War," or with some still earlier free-booter, of Hereward's time, who had taken to the woods and lived by plundering the Normans. Myth as he is, he is a thoroughly national conception. He had the English love of fair play; the English readiness to shake hands and make up when worsted in a square fight. He killed the King's venison, but was a loyal subject. He took from the rich and gave to the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... punishing him by dismissal for his negligence and cowardice in commanding a force that, properly led, might have coerced the whole province, when the alarming news reached the Governor-General that Suleiman and his band had quitted Shaka, and were plundering in the neighbourhood of Dara itself. The gravity of this danger admitted of no delay. Not a moment could be spared to either punish an incapable lieutenant or to crush the foe Haroun, whose proceedings were the alleged main cause ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... insects, and their seeds from birds. On the other hand swiftness of wing has been acquired by hawks and swallows to pursue their prey; and a proboscis of admirable structure has been acquired by the bee, the moth, and the humming bird, for the purpose of plundering the nectaries of flowers. All which seem to have been formed by the original living filament, excited into action by the necessities of the creatures, which possess them, and on ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... Censi, classes usually exempt from service. With these troops, who would be more easily satisfied and more manageable, he filled up the gaps in the legions in Africa, and set to work, as Metellus had done, taking towns and forts and plundering the country. Bocchus had separated from Jugurtha, for they hoped that the Romans having two foes to chase would be the more easily harassed. But Marius was always on his guard, and beat, though he could never capture, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... part of the sierra, from the border of the United States south about 250 miles, was under the undisputed control of the wild Apache Indians. From their mountain strongholds these marauders made raiding expeditions into the adjacent states, west and east, sweeping down upon the farms, plundering the villages, driving off horses and herds of cattle, killing men and carrying off women and children into slavery. Mines became unworkable; farms had to be deserted; the churches, built by the Spaniards, mouldered into decay. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... sought refuge abroad from Harold's rule, men who were bitterly opposed to the new government he founded, with its system of taxation and its strict laws. They could not see why the old system of robbing and plundering within Norway's confines should be interfered with or their other ancient privileges curtailed, and several thousand sailed away to found new homes in the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... necessary, this takes place so quickly and out of so many eggs in succession that it sometimes has to stand without moving, unable to fly further until it has thrown up what it had swallowed. The skua in this way commonly takes part in the plundering of every eider island. The walrus-hunters are very much embittered against the bird on account of this intrusion on their industry, and kill it whenever they can. The whalers called it "struntjaeger"—refuse-hunter—because they believed ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... with Dr. Scott to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions-house at the Old-Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day. Such is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... a process which had been adopted somewhat earlier. That was the permanent conquest of trans-oceanic territory. Until the seventeenth century had well begun, naval, or combined naval and military, operations against the distant possessions of an enemy had been practically restricted to raiding or plundering attacks on commercial centres. The Portuguese territory in South America having come under Spanish dominion in consequence of the annexation of Portugal to Spain, the Dutch—as the power of the latter country declined—attempted to reduce part of ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... struggled to remove the rubbish of stones and timber with which they were covered, and found some still alive, although they had been three, four, or even five days in that terrible condition" (from a Venetian book of 1667). A good deal of plundering went on, the peasants and Morlacchi looking on the catastrophe as a godsend. Biagio Caboga and Michele Bosdari armed their retainers, and kept watch over the ruined churches and public buildings: the relics and remains of the cathedral treasure were removed ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... belonging to Koorshid's party, who, far too great to act as common soldiers, swagger about with little slave-boys in attendance, who carry their muskets. I often compare the hard lot of our honest poor in England with that of these scoundrels, whose courage consists in plundering and murdering defenceless natives, while the robbers fatten on the spoil. I am most anxious to see whether the English Government will take active notice of the White Nile trade, or whether diplomacy will confine them to simple protest and correspondence, to be silenced by a promise ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... the king in connection with a council of ministers. The forty-one provinces of the kingdom are in charge of commissioners appointed by the king. Such a thing as justice is hardly known, and what there is of it is very badly managed. Thieving and plundering are carried on almost without check in Bangkok, which includes about all there is of Siam except a great deal of spare territory, and property is very unsafe there. I think I have wearied you, Mr. Commander, and ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... half a mile over there, is my guardian. About twenty Confederate soldiers, or guerillas, I don't know which, are plundering his house and stable, and they say they will have his money if they have to pull his house down to find it," answered Grace, trembling, and glancing frequently behind her, as though she were in mortal terror of the approach of ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... not comply with their labor contracts. Little is said, however, about the evils arising from the attitude of Southern white men who have never liked to work and that of those who during this period, according to the author, formed roving bands for plundering and stealing. But we are too close to the history of Reconstruction to expect better treatment. We are just now reaching the period when we can tell the truth about the American Revolution. We must yet wait a century before we shall find ourselves far enough ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... steer towards Naples, with the hope of proving more successful in his enquiries. It had been rumoured, that the plundering of Algiers was the object of the French armament; but this account he considered as much too vague to warrant ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... own find. It had been found long before by the plundering Persians, and it had been found by Arabs who had plundered the Persian remains—but between and after those findings the oblivious sands had swept over it, blotting it from the world, choking the entrance hall and the shafts, seeping through half-sealed entrances and packing ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... singly, most of Burgoyne's Indians now deserted him. So far from intimidating, their atrocities had served to arouse the Americans as nothing else could. As soldiers, they had usually run away at the first fire. As scouts, their minds were wholly fixed upon plundering. Burgoyne had sharply rebuked them for it. Ever sullen and intractable under restraint, their answer was at least explicit, "No plunder, no Indians;" and they were as good as ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... of the tribe, and they long to go out and capture a few 'pale face' scalps on their own account. After a while they work themselves up to the required pitch, and some fine day a band of them sallies forth on the 'war path.' Then there is a brief time of plundering and murdering, until the troops can come up with them. Then there's a scrimmage, in which most of the band is exterminated, and the rest are herded back to the reservation, with most of the fight gone ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... meaning of those words. He declared that "waste and corruption had piled up the national debt," and that it was "criminal folly to exempt bonds from taxation." Then, entering into a general discussion of finance, he arraigned the war party for its extravagance, infidelity, and plundering policy. "Those who hold the power," he said, "have not only hewed up to the line of repudiation, but they have not tried to give value to the public credit. It is not the bondholder, it is the office holder who sucks the blood of the people. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... would have had no scruples to enact laws for the special purpose of plundering the people, by means of the judgments of juries, if they could have got juries to acknowledge the authority of their laws, is evident from the audacity with which they plundered them, without any judgments of juries to ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... the Thracians who were left in charge of it, and began to plunder. This was stopped by the phalangite troops of the second line, who, after the enemy's horsemen had rushed by them, faced about, countermarched upon the camp, killed many of the Indians and Persians in the act of plundering, and forced the rest to ride off again. Just at this crisis, Alexander had been recalled from his pursuit of Darius, by tidings of the distress of Parmenio, and of his inability to bear up any longer against ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... engagements, taking prompt measures for action, or striving to repress the violence of his sons and partizans, or it might be gazing on his younger boys with sad anxiety. Richard well remembered his saying, when he heard that his sons, Simon and Guy, had been plundering the merchant ships in the Channel: "Alas! alas! when I was more loyal to the law than to the Crown, I little deemed that I was rearing a brood who would scorn all ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... patriotic, Protestant, Union-loving, native-born citizens of every section, and of every Christian denomination—self-sacrificing patriots, who prefer their country, and the religion of their fathers, and of the Bible, to a factious name, a plundering political organization, and an ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... labour of one man could have compassed; and which he is as ready to communicate, as he has been careful to collect it." Hist. of the Reformation, vol. iii., p. 46. It seems hard to reconcile this testimony of Burnet with the late Mr. Gough's declaration, that "The bishop collected his library by plundering those of the clergy in his diocese; some he paid with sermons or more modern books; others only with 'quid illiterati cum libris.'" On the death of More, his library was offered to Lord Oxford for 8000l.; and how that distinguished and truly noble collector could have declined the purchase ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... neatly stuffed, and look so lifelike and the positions are so natural, that you could almost fancy that you hear the noise of the scuffle. The next scene represents an owl, which, while engaged in one of his nocturnal plundering expeditions, has been overtaken by daylight, and not being able to reach his usual hiding-place, he has taken refuge in a clump of bushes, where he has been discovered by a flock of his inveterate enemies, the crows. The owl sits upon his perch, ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... townsmen. There were also a large number of detached attacks on persons and on manor houses, where manor court rolls and other documents were destroyed and property carried off. There was more theft here than in London; but much of the plundering was primarily intended to settle old disputes rather than for its own sake. In Norfolk the insurrection broke out a day or two later than in Suffolk, and is notable as having among its patrons a considerable number of the lesser gentry and other well-to-do ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... derived from pleasure, the government must confer favours. But, as there is no limit to its desire of obedience, there will be no limit to its disposition to confer favours; and, as it can confer favours only by plundering the people, there will be no limit to its disposition to plunder the people. It is therefore not true that there is in the mind of a king, or in the minds of an aristocracy, any point of saturation with ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... drops a hint that the Pope might be placed under the guarantee and protection of the Catholic powers; on which X retorts: "The Catholic powers indeed! First of all, you ought to be sure whether the Catholic powers will not co-operate with the Jew, in the disgraceful act of plundering Christ through his Vicar, in order to guarantee him afterwards the last shreds of his garment." (Another somewhat novel view, by the way, of Gospel history.) "Secondly, you should learn whether any tribunal in the world, in the name of common ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... year of his reign, when he led his troops "from the walls of Antoninus to the shores of Kent"; the successful raid into Armorica which commenced with the capture of the Roman encampment at Haute Ville, Boulogne, and ended in the plundering of the surrounding country, must have been the burden of many a warlike song whenever the Irish minstrels chanted the glorious triumphs of King Niall's invincible troops. It is, therefore, but natural to suppose every man, woman, and child in Ireland had often heard the ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming

... kings, who likewise wore the ducal coronet of Normandy. The most celebrated of all was that of Matilda: according to Ordericus Vitalis, it was of exquisite workmanship, and richly ornamented with gold and precious stones. But the Calvinists demolished it in 1562; and, not content with plundering the monument of all that was valuable, tore open the Queen's coffin, and dispersed her remains. Towards the close of the same century, Anne de Montmorenci, then abbess, caused the royal bones to be collected, and ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... drawn together from every part, and nothing can escape their fury. In vain did I think myself safe in the humble obscurity of my cottage, and the reputed favour of the great Arsaces. Yesterday, a lawless band, not contented with destroying my harvest and plundering my little property, seized my daughter and me, and dragged us away in chains. What farther injuries, what farther insults we might have suffered, it is impossible to determine, since Heaven was pleased to ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... their voices were heard to rise louder than good-feeling would have allowed, though the words they uttered were not caught by any listener. Were they haggling, as robbers have been known to do after successful operations in plundering, over the division of the spoils? At nightfall the Colonel returned to the city, and Camp Lyon and the Two Hundredth Regiment saw ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... sixty to eighty feet long, by ten or fifteen broad, of which a specimen can be seen at the museum of Kiel,[32] the dwellers on the shores of the Baltic and North Sea had at first organised plundering expeditions against the great island. They came periodically and laid waste the coasts; and on account of them the inhabitants gave to this part of the land the name Littus Saxonicum. Each time the pirates met with less resistance, and found the country more disorganised. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... work. Indeed, the prematurely old and abortive house had its best counterpart in the young man himself, who stole into one of its small, unplastered rooms with many a wary glance, as though it were a treasure-vault which he was bent on plundering. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... of sheep and cattle, and those who drove them, casting them down beneath the feet of the bloodiest robbers. "Crouch there," said one; "though you feared so much of old the thieves on London road, you were yourselves the very worst species of highwaymen, living upon the road and plundering, yes, and murdering poor families. O how many poor creatures did you not keep, with their hungry mouths open, in vain expectation of the money for the sale of the beasts, which they had intrusted to you; and ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... request was granted by Valens; but they were rudely treated by the Roman officials, especially their women, and treachery was added to their other wrongs. Filled with indignation, they made a combination and swept everything before them,—plundering cities, and sparing neither age nor sex. These ravages continued for a year. Valens, aroused, advanced against them, and was slain in the memorable battle on the plains of Adrianople, 9th of August, 378,—the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... herdsmen and husbandmen in the Roman world who were dwelling in all the peace and quietness they could command, improving with their peaceful industry every acre where corn would ripen or grass grow. It was by taxing and plundering the proceeds of this industry that the generals and soldiers, the consuls and praetors, and proconsuls and propraetors, filled their treasuries, and fed their troops, and paid the artisans for fabricating their arms. With these avails ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... combination with Southern gentlemen, who may see fit to espouse this doctrine. We desire peace. We believe that this war ought never to have been commenced, and we do not wish to have it made the pretext for plundering Mexico of one foot of her lands. But if the war is to be prosecuted, and if territories are to be conquered and annexed, we shall stand fast and forever to the principle that, so far as we are concerned, these territories shall be the exclusive abode of freemen. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... this is largely because the principle is employed with such relative infrequency that we have not as yet developed a technique of compensation. German cities have learned how to acquire property for public use without either plundering the private owner or excessively enriching him. The British application of the Small Holdings Acts has duly protected the interests of the large landholder, without making of him a ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... characterized him when living, stamped the expression of his countenance even now. He had fallen upon his breast four or five yards from where he had been sleeping, and was dressed only in his shirt. In all probability, the noise made by the natives, in plundering the camp, had awoke him; and upon his jumping up, with a view of stopping them, they had fired ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... saw Mr Dorrit's equipage upon the Dover road, where every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house, established for the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole business of the human race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury. However, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... general of the soldiers, and of course the greatest man among them; and he had also become very rich by conquering the Peruvians, and plundering their towns, that is, taking away all the gold and silver he found: and Atabalipa supposed that, as he was the chief of the Spaniards, he must be the cleverest of them too; but one day he happened to ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner

... Captain Cook and his soldiers to guard it as far as the fording of the Arkansas, at that time the boundary line between the two countries. There was good reason for believing that a strong band of Texan rangers were waiting beyond, with the intention of attacking and plundering the train. Indeed the Mexican who had it in charge had received information that left no possible ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... Charlton, on the north bank of the Tyne, and the mansion of Hesleyside on the other, carry the mind back to the old reiving plundering days, for it was at Hesleyside that the incident of the ancient spur of the Charlton's took place, doubtless many a time and oft, when the good lady of Hesleyside served up the spur at dinner as a gentle hint that the larder was empty, and it behoved her lord to mount and away to replenish the same, ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... or real lord. Bisserdi possesses a beautiful country, adorned with fertile fields, considerable rivers, and many fine woods, and can raise about a thousand horse. The higher order of the people in this country chiefly subsist by plundering the caravans. They have excellent horses; the people are valiant, inured to war, and very artful; but have nothing singular in their manners and appearance. Their country abounds in corn, cattle, and honey; but produces no wine. Beyond this country there are other provinces, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... Hannibal had his camp. No Cannæ or Pharsalia or Pavia or Agincourt or Waterloo must discourage her. Let her Senate sit in their seats until the Gauls pluck them by the beard. She must, above all things, be just, not truckling to the strong and warring on or plundering the weak; she must act on the square with all nations, and the feeblest tribes; always keeping her faith, honest in her legislation, upright in all her dealings. Whenever such a Republic exists, it will ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... the whole, or the greater part of the gold which the first adventurers imported into Europe was got by so very easy a method as the plundering of the defenceless natives, it was not perhaps very difficult to pay even this heavy tax; but when the natives were once fairly stript of all that they had, which, in St. Domingo, and in all the other countries discovered by Columbus, was done completely ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... treasure from Peru. Quickly boarding her, the English sailors bound the Spaniards, stowed them under the hatches, and hastily transferred the cargo on to the Golden Hind. They sailed on northwards to Lima and Panama, chasing the ships of Spain, plundering as they went, till they were deeply laden with stolen Spanish treasure and knew that they had made it impossible to return home by that coast. So Drake resolved to go on northward and discover, if possible, a way home by the north. He had probably heard of Frobisher's ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... seems to have been so far from meeting with assistance from those who were plundering the dead, without thinking of the living, that although he saw many boats passing and repassing the Fleet water, he found great difficulty in procuring a passage for himself and two or three fellow-sufferers ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... cruelly slain. He thought of his wife too, whom he had left at home, and of his little son Ascanius, and he began now to be overwhelmed with the apprehension, that the besiegers had found their way to his dwelling, and were, perhaps, at that very moment plundering and destroying it and perpetrating cruel deeds of violence and outrage upon his wife and family. He determined ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... from the battle-field, but not many, and those of little value. I cannot bear the idea of plundering either the living or the dead; but I picked up a Russian metal cross, and took from the bodies of some of the poor fellows nothing of more value than a few buttons, which I severed from their coarse ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... brought to bear on any measure which afforded a reasonable promise of auspicious results. The army of Burgoyne was then hovering on their borders in its most menacing attitude. Marauding parties were daily penetrating the interior, and plundering and capturing the defenceless inhabitants, while each day brought the unwelcome news of the defection of individuals who had openly gone off to swell the ranks of the victorious enemy to whose alarming progress scarcely a show of resistance had ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... the blazes is in the wind now!' growled a deep voice. 'Who pitched that 'ere at me? It's well it's the beer, and not the pot, as hit me, or I'd have settled somebody. I might have know'd, as nobody but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to throw away any drink but water—and not that, unless he done the River Company every quarter. Wot's it all about, Fagin? D—me, if my neck-handkercher an't lined with beer! Come in, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... it?" continued the Major, sipping at his beverage. "Sic transit gloria mundi! That was when the great Captain Kidd Havens was piling up the millions which his survivors are spending with such charming insouciance. He was plundering a railroad, and the original progenitor of the Wallings tried to buy the control away from him, and Havens issued ten or twenty millions of new stock overnight, in the face of a court injunction, and got away with most of his money. It reads like opera bouffe, you know—they had a regular ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... quaint and striking picture of what followed. "Deplorable and sad was the countenance of the town after that," writes he; "the victorious soldiers on the one hand killing, breaking into houses, plundering, sacking, roaring, and threatening; on the other hand, the subdued flying, turning their backs to be cut and slashed, and with outstretched hands begging quarter; some, in vain resisting, sold their lives as dear as they could, whilst the citizens to no purpose prayed, lamented, and bewailed. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... could distinguish figures moving about the blaze. The way winding still nearer, they perceived in the valley one of those numerous bands of gipsies, which at that period particularly haunted the wilds of the Pyrenees, and lived partly by plundering the traveller. Emily looked with some degree of terror on the savage countenances of these people, shewn by the fire, which heightened the romantic effects of the scenery, as it threw a red dusky gleam ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... cruelty. Thus, then, the English sailors regarded the Spaniards as the enemy of their country, as the enemy of their religion, and as the enemy of humanity. Besides which, it cannot be denied that they viewed them as rich men, well worth plundering; and although, when it came to fighting, it is probable that hatred overbore the thought of gain, it is certain that the desire for gold was, in itself, the main incentive to those who sailed ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... day in the same papers. How many riots, how many hangings, how many special commissions we can trace back, all proceeding from the delusions of the public press! How many persons have lost their lives for plundering, pulling down, and burning the property of millers, butchers, and bakers; how much blood has been spilt, every drop of which blood may be fairly placed at the door of those who urged these poor fellows on, and instigated them to acts of violence against those classes of persons, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... off this accursed coast Bainbridge hauled down his colors. The crews of the Tripolitan gunboats swarmed aboard and set about plundering right and left. Swords, epaulets, watches, money, and clothing were stripped from the officers; and if the crew in the forecastle suffered less it was because they had less to lose. Officers and men were then tumbled into boats and taken ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... soar above the care for his personal safety and the chance of plundering the town in his charge, but he feared that such a late adhesion would earn but scant gratitude from the victors. He had believed just a little too long in the power of the San Tome mine. The seized correspondence had confirmed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... the relics were again removed, and were probably placed first at Dunkeld and afterwards at Abernethy,[193] where the primacy was successively established, and a memorial of which exists in the Abernethy round tower. The plundering continued at intervals, and the buildings were more or less ruinous till about 1074, when Queen Margaret "restored the monastery, ... rebuilt it, and furnished it with monks, with an endowment for performing the Lord's work." "One of the present buildings," said the late ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... in bestowing the amount. Our thus refraining from plunder was almost beyond the comprehension of a people who had bitter experience of Spanish rapacity, whilst the undisciplined Chilenos, who formed the greater portion of the squadron, as little comprehended why their plundering propensities ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... or on the North, as an insect lives on a tree; and, like the insect, become an integral part of it, borrowing their merit from that of what they feed on. Now, Italy hitherto has not yet been worked out in public lectures. No one will ever give me credit for my literary honesty. Merely by plundering you I might have been as learned as three Schlegels in one, whereas I mean to remain a humble Doctor of the Faculty of Social Medicine, a veterinary surgeon for incurable maladies. Were it only to lay a token of gratitude at the feet of my cicerone, I would fain add your illustrious name to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... drunkenness, was perfectly true to his leader. He had a notion—and, indeed, I don't know that it was a wrong one—that his profession was now, as before, strictly military, and according to the rules of honour. Robbing he called plundering the enemy; and hanging was, in his idea, a dastardly and cruel advantage that the latter took, and that called ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the Athenian Callippus (B.C. 279). On this occasion the Celts attracted by the report of treasures which were now perhaps little more than an empty name, penetrated as far southwards as Delphi, with the view of plundering the temple. The god, it is said, vindicated his sanctuary on this occasion in the same supernatural manner as when it was attacked by the Persians: it is at all events certain that the Celts were repulsed with great loss, including that of their leader Brennus. Nevertheless some of their tribes ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plundering in search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy went hunting among the solemn aisles and ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... stranger, the marauders retreated; determining, indeed, to say nothing of the matter to the officer in the castle, lest he should demand the horn; and, elated with the present booty, they marched off to pursue their plundering excursion. Bursting into yeomen's houses and peasants' huts, stripping all of their substance who did or did not swear fealty to Edward; thus robbing the latter, and exacting contributions from the former; while ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... misfortune was on the way to obscure the star of Beauregard. His soldiers, elated with their wonderful victory, broke into disorderly plundering of the captured Federal camps. Except for a few thousand sternly disciplined troops under Bragg's command the whole Southern army suddenly degenerated into a mob of roving plunderers, mad with folly. In the rich stores of the Federal army thousands of gallons ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... had the worst of it, for, as they were naked, we always made great slaughter. Many times not more than sixteen of us fought with no less than two thousand, in the end defeating them, killing many, and plundering their houses. ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... Disraeli, who had been nowhere at the polls in 1868, was suddenly swept into the highest place by those "harassed interests" which Mr. Gladstone's great administration had offended by a policy that Disraeli described as one of "plundering and blundering." It was, in reality, a policy which preferred the interests of the nation to those of the privileged classes. In Leeds, where I had now, for the first time as editor of a daily newspaper, to taste the doubtful joys of a General ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... time was soon to come, for the soldiers, setting a strong trap to catch a wild cat which was nightly plundering them of their meat ration, caught Hansie's beloved Mauser ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... and closely examined the walls. They found, under some sheepskins in one corner, a bag containing upwards of two hundred pounds; which was doubtless the amount which the bush rangers had brought back with them, from their last plundering expedition, and had not yet been added to their main store, wherever that might be. This, however, was a welcome find to the police, and they abandoned the idea of searching further; and were about to set fire to the hut, ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... endurance, and an activity, which, in the travel of day after day, will seldom subside from the gallop. It was the increasing demand for these animals that had originally brought into existence and exercise a company, which, by a transition far from uncommon, passed readily from the plundering of horses to the cutting of throats and purses; scarcely discriminating in their reckless rapacity between the several degrees of crime in which ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they pass. They refused, during the battle, to lend their assistance to save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, were defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the janizaries and spahis were nobly employed in plundering their ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... and trusting an order to deal with the turbulent and somewhat treacherous elements which abounded at Asuncion. After a while a revolt occurred, brought about probably by the Governor's objection to the wholesale plundering and enslavement of the Indians by the Spaniards. The populace turned strongly against the Governor. Cabeza de Vaca was flung into prison, and sent a prisoner to Spain, after which drastic procedure Irala was once again elected Governor by the colonists. Doubtless ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... president of the meetings of the council in London; and by the assignment of the transportation of the colony to Captain Christopher Newport, a mariner of experience in voyages to the West Indies and in plundering the Spaniards, who had the power to appoint different captains and mariners, and the sole charge of the voyage. No local councilors were named for Virginia, but to Captain Newport, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, and Captain John Ratcliffe were delivered sealed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Delhi in the reign of the next Tughluk, Sultan Mahmud. Timur, with his Mongolian horsemen, swooped down through the northern passes upon Delhi, slaying Mahomedans and Hindus alike and plundering and burning on all sides as he came. Opposite to the famous ridge, where four and a half centuries later England was to nail her flag to the mast, he forded the Jumna, having previously slain all captives ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... very old gentleman in military costume spoke to me before the Tuileries, and saying that he had seen all of the old Revolution and Napoleon's wars, actually with tears in his eyes implored me to use my influence to prevent any plundering. "Respectez la properte." There were very few gentlemen indeed among the insurgents. I only observed two or three in our quarter, and they were all from our hotel, or rather lodgings. But the next day every swell in Paris came out as an insurgent. They had all worked at barricades—so ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... once to see my aunt, but could give her only a few minutes, as I knew McLane would need my knowledge of the neighbourhood. In fact, I was busy for two days looking after the Tory bands who were plundering farms to west ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... they built their shapely long ships and galleys of the northern pine and oak, and swept hardily down on the coasts of England, Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy, and the lands of the Levant, surprising, massacring, plundering. In France (Normandy), in England, and lastly in Ireland they planted colonies. Their greatest success was in England, which they conquered, Canute becoming king. Their greatest battles and final defeat were in Ireland. ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet The admiral with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari on the Albanian coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight more, with which he scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering all Venetian property. Some sixteen of his galleys were still missing when he reached the island of Curzola, or Scurzola as the more popular name seems to have been, the Black Corcyra of the Ancients—the chief town of which, a rich and flourishing place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... further end of the room, the master had seen with agony the women left well-nigh defenseless. Followed by Woodson, Havisham, Regulus, and young Whittington, he had all but cut his way back to them, when a fresh influx from the hall of slaves and whites who had been engaged in plundering the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... factor in politics. With an abnormal desire to hoard money, an unbridled temper, and a violent and domineering disposition, she became the most powerful and dangerous, as well as the most feared, woman of all France. During her regency the state coffers were pillaged, and plundering was carried on on all sides. One of her acts at this time was to cause the recall of Charles of Bourbon, then Governor of Milan; this measure was taken as much for the purpose of obtaining revenge for his scornful rejection of her offer of marriage as ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... its rough surface. A cavern, about thirty feet in width, penetrated a short distance into the rock. This natural curiosity bore the name of "Cave-in-Rock," and was, in 1801, the rendezvous of a band of outlaws, who lived by plundering the boats going up and down the river, oftentimes adding the crime of murder to their other misdeeds. Just below the cliff nestled a little ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with one another from distant places. But granting such occult powers in a world of economic strife, what follows? Simply new floods of charlatanism, elaborate and complicated systems of ritual and metaphysic for the deluding and plundering of the credulous. ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... bibles, and morocco prayer books, and all such excellent helps, to teach him that "God is love", and "mercy his delight"; that such a one, I say, should have originated the infernal warfare, of plundering, burning, and hanging the American patriots, is most HORRIBLE. And yet, if possible, more true than horrible. Yes, sure as the day of doom, when that fearful day shall come, and lord Cornwallis, stript of his "brief authority", shall stand, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... democratic as Jefferson himself, but with a perfect willingness to fight and with a great respect for fighters. To these men, the tameness with which the United States had submitted to insults and plundering was growing to be unendurable. Plain masculine anger began ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... entered boldly closed and deserted houses, and bore off with impunity, whatever they pleased. Highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, and all the roads leading from the city, levying a toll on all who passed, and plundering fearlessly the flying citizens. In fact, far-famed London town, in the year of grace 1665, would have given one a good idea of Pandemonium ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... marriage of the king with the French princess are still going on, you will not be disturbed. The main body of the French army will likely be engaged on more important enterprises, and if you are attacked it will probably be only by strong plundering detachments; these you need not fear. Should you be besieged strongly, hold out as long as you can. I shall be sure to receive news of it from Calais, and will go at once to the king and pray for his protection, ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... the duty of the State (nation) why should not the State resume the discharge of this duty when the corporate agents to which it has delegated it are found to be using the delegated power for the purpose of oppressing and plundering a public which it is the duty of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... with which the science of government has been enveloped, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing upon mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious and the most easy to be understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins its enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point, or alphabet, at which the study of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... than their master's pleasure, so there was no other guarantee than his caprice. They had therefore to set quickly to work; the post might be lost before its cost had been recovered. Thus all the science of administration resolved itself into plundering as much and as quickly as possible. To this end, the delegate of imperial power delegated in his turn, on similar conditions, other agents to seize for him and for themselves all they could lay their hands on; so that the inhabitants of the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... the influence of this factor of geographical environment that they and their neighbors are the best known of the plains tribes. Their activity in later times is evident from the fact that the Tetons were called "the plundering Arabs of America." If their activities had been more wisely directed, they might have made a great name for themselves in Indian history. In the arts they stood as high as could be expected in view of the wandering life which they ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... well got into the Suburbs of Babylon, I was inform'd, that not only the Queen, but Zadig too had privately left the Court: Whereupon I ran directly to Zadig's House, tho' I never sat Eye on the Man in all my Life. There I found the Court-Marshals of the grand Desterham, plundering, by Virtue of his Majesty's Mandate, all his Effects, in the most loyal Manner. From thence I made the best of my Way to the Queen's Kitchin; where, applying my self to the Steward of her Household, and his inferior Officers; one of ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... risk against the chance of winning what lay within the close grasp of the youngster's chubby hand. It was a fearful lottery, Chicken knew. But he must accomplish his end by strategy, since he had a wholesome terror of plundering infants by force. Once, in a park, driven by hunger, he had committed an onslaught upon a bottle of peptonized infant's food in the possession of an occupant of a baby carriage. The outraged infant had so promptly opened its mouth and pressed the button that communicated with the welkin that ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... Norman cross-bows would find you, even as they search out hart or heron," interposed Brother Basil sternly. "I have warned you, Ruric, that this harrying and plundering must cease. Turn from your wickedness and bear yourselves hereafter as Christian men, and your souls shall live. And because ye were sorely tried, with God's help a way may he opened for ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... and property from the cruel rapacity of those abandoned marauders, who, on some parts of our coasts, have but too long followed a practice disgraceful to a civilized state, and dangerous in its example as fatal to its victims, of plundering from wrecks, and there is much reason to fear, often suffering to perish, from want of assistance, many who might otherwise have been rescued from peril, and restored to their friends and their country; but ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary



Words linked to "Plundering" :   despoliation, ravaging, plunder, banditry, spoliation, spoilation, predation, spoil, sack, aggression, acquisitive, despoilation, robbery, hostility, pillaging, rape, rapine, despoilment, looting, depredation, devastation



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