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Reprisal   Listen
noun
Reprisal  n.  
1.
The act of taking from an enemy by way of reteliation or indemnity. "Debatable ground, on which incursions and reprisals continued to take place."
2.
Anything taken from an enemy in retaliation.
3.
The act of retorting on an enemy by inflicting suffering or death on a prisoner taken from him, in retaliation for an act of inhumanity.
4.
Any act of retaliation.
Letters of marque and reprisal. See under Marque.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reprisal" Quotes from Famous Books



... water, and fed on salt cod during sixty hours. Others have been tortured in prison in other ways—some tortures so vile and filthy that I would not tell you of them. I write this in order to show you that the moment is ripe here for some vigorous act of reprisal. It is impossible to strike a blow at all those who are responsible, for the whole of Society is to blame: but those most guilty must suffer for it. I am prepared to strike my final blow before I take my leave, and you will learn from the papers in a few days' ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... proceeding resulting in a decree absolutoria, dismissing the defendant, or condemnatoria, ordering restoration to be made by him. In 1585 the patent of Howard, the lord high admiral, authorized him to issue letters of reprisal against Spain; and an order in council regulating the conduct of those to whom such letters were issued provided by an additional article (1859) that all prizes were to be brought in without breaking of bulk for adjudication by the Admiralty ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... have a rock rolled suddenly upon him from a height, or in passing a thicket have the flint head of a spear driven through him, but this was only the deed, perhaps, of an enraged father or brother, not in any sense a matter of course in the way of justice, and even such attempt at reprisal was ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... decisive moment had come and gone now, and without a leader to command them Gordon's men seemed loath to adopt a more bloody reprisal. They gave way, therefore, in a half-hearted hesitation that spelled ruin to their cause. They were forced back to their encampment: over the ground they had vacated picks and shovels began to fly, rails were torn up and relaid, gravel rained from ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... of such an alliance? It is not too much to construe it into the first step toward a world-war—a war of reprisal and conquest beside which the other great wars of the world would seem trivial. For the fact has at last come home to the nations of the world that ultimately the English-speaking peoples will dominate it—dominate it, because they are the practical peoples. ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... accompanied by confiscation and search of all papers found. This method is much in favour with the Russian police. I have always regarded it as largely futile; first, because the anarchists are not such fools, speaking generally, as to commit their purposes to writing; and, second, because it leads to reprisal. Each raid is usually followed by a fresh outbreak of activity on the part of those left free. The second method is to bribe an anarchist to betray his comrades. I have never found any difficulty in getting ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... in wait for some encroachment of the literary department on the art department, and he met it now and then with anticipative reprisal. ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger

... you cannot. Kurzbold has just shown what an irreclaimable beast he is, and on that account, because birth, or training, or something has made you one of different caliber, you cannot thus desert him to the reprisal of that red fiend up ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... stored in Michel Trudeau's shack. Some wretch set fire to it and destroyed it all. Naturally they thought it was done by John Gaviller's orders. This is their reprisal." ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... authority of this Resolve of the Continental Congress, purchased two vessels and named one the "Lexington," the other the "Reprisal." ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin

... at the idea that an old and formerly zealous servant was about to become a victim to expediency, for the spirit of revolt, which he had hitherto endeavoured to suppress by clemency, had now risen hydra-headed, threatening to dispute his right of reprisal, and to involve the nation once more in civil war. He painfully felt, that under circumstances like these, lenity would become, not only a weakness, but a crime, and possessing, as he did, the most ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... of that form of retaliation to be met with in the history of home pressing. In the American colonies, on the other hand, it was a common feature of demonstrations against the gang. Boston was specially notorious for that form of reprisal, and Governor Shirley, in one of his masterly dispatches, narrates at length, and with no little humour, how the mob on one occasion burnt with great eclat what they believed to be the press-boat, only to discover, when it was reduced to ashes, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... Washington, supported by the highest judicial authority of the country, had, as President of the United States, denied publicly Genet's authority to establish consular courts within them, and to issue letters of marque and reprisal to their citizens, against the enemies of France, he had the insolence to appeal from the President, and to deny his power to revoke the exequatur of a French consul, who, by a process issued from his own court, rescued, with an armed force, a ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... that was like a dying reprisal, though obviously not being directed by him as of now. And come to think of it, it may have had ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... felt secure, at leisure, acquiescently allowing the event to develop as it needs must,—or perhaps realizing the significance of the discovery to the young strangers, their palpitant eagerness to gauge its result, their dread of reprisal, of forced renunciation of their booty, the Indians permitted themselves a relish of the torture of an enemy on a more ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... reprisal, was a most barbarous custom. A famous example is given of it. In 1022, William the Pious, Count of Angouleme, before starting for a pilgrimage to Rome, made his three brothers, who were his vassals, swear ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... relentless deductions would presently lead. This was precisely the result that a discharged foreign workman would seek in his reprisal. This man would have hot blood, the southern Europe instinct for revenge, but with such a mother, no mere lust to kill. I tried to divert her from ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... harm or give cause of complaint to any one, under penalty not only of not receiving any assistance, but also of being expelled by force. In case that any vessel of war or privateer having letters of reprisal refuse to hoist on arrival its flag, or may be in the said waters and rivers without permission of the College of Admiralty in the district where they are, the crew will be regarded and treated as pirates. All officers ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... lived through there nobody else can know; what terrible visions of vengeance lit up his outraged intellect, what cold intervals of quivering hate, what stealthy schemes of reprisal, what awful retribution for young Mr. Yates were hatched in those dreadful moments, he alone could tell. And as he never did tell, how can ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... garden party or not (pending her own decision as to what she was meaning to do with him) Lucia received the information with the utmost good-humour, merely saying, "No doubt dear Mrs Quantock forgot to tell you," and did not announce acts of reprisal, such as striking Daisy off the list of her habitual guests for a week or two, just to give her a lesson. She even, before they sat down to lunch, telephoned over to that thwarted woman to say that she had met the Guru ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... most bloody battle the Carthaginians had fought during this war: and, whether we consider the death of the general, or the slaughter made of the Carthaginian forces, it may be looked upon as a reprisal for the battle of Cannae. The Carthaginians lost fifty-five thousand men,(798) and six thousand were taken prisoners. The Romans lost eight thousand. These were so weary of killing, that some person telling Livius, that he might very easily cut to pieces a body of the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... in a world turmoil, when everything was fluid. Anyhow, they got away with it, for a certain group, Extrapolators, had to be free to extrapolate without fear of reprisal." ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... Vindictives. Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the recruiting offices had been opened to negroes. Thereupon the Confederate government threatened to treat black soldiers as brigands, and to refuse to their white officers the protection of the laws of war. A cry went up in the North for reprisal. It was not the first time the cry had been raised. In 1862 Lincoln's spokesman in Congress, Browning, had withstood a proposal for the trial of General Buckner by the civil authorities of Kentucky. Browning opposed such a course on the ground that it would lead to a policy of retaliation, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... odd in M. Guillaume's presence, however little the lady or the Captain had suspected it. The surprise he gave was a reprisal for that which he had suffered when, after the Captain's exit, he had recovered his full faculties and heard a furtive movement within the hut. It was the inspiration and the work of a moment to raise himself with an exaggerated effort and a purposed noise, and to take ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... whispers dropped now and then revealed an abiding terror beneath. Some time during the next day or two the anticipated calamity fell upon Louvain. The Germans without any proof insisted that sniping was going on, and the military authorities seized this pretext to put into force their threatened reprisal. The torch was thrown into convicted houses. Larger groups of citizens were led to execution. Thereupon the "brute" passion dormant in soldiers broke the bonds of discipline. Flames burst forth everywhere. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... had occupied Darien, flung away both letter and Act of Parliament with a gesture of contempt, called for a guard, and was with difficulty dissuaded from throwing the messenger into a dungeon. The Council of Caledonia, in great indignation, issued letters of mark and reprisal against Spanish vessels. What every man of common sense must have foreseen had taken place. The Scottish flag had been but a few months planted on the walls of New Edinburgh; and already a war, which Scotland, without the help of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... up fresh difficulties. Secret clubs were formed for murder and reprisal. A body called the "Yellows" had bound themselves by private oaths to keep up the memory of the religious victories of their predecessors, and to worry the clerical party in every possible way. Their pleasure was to go about insanely ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... "I quite realise that—and that's why I admire it. If you had produced it as a real thing, and not by way of reprisal, I should think very ill of your prospects. It's like the work of an analytical chemist—I tell you what it's like, it's like the diagnosis of the symptoms of some sick person of rank in a doctor's case-book! But, of course, you know you mustn't write like that, as well as ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... before we arrived in Yuen-nan a number of Chinese soldiers butchered nearly a hundred Lolos whom they had encountered outside the independent territory, and in reprisal the Lolos burned several villages almost under the walls of a fortified city in which were five hundred soldiers, massacred all the men and boys, and carried off the women ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... provisions in favor of the federal authority consists of the following restrictions on the authority of the several States:1. "No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex-post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility. ''The prohibition against treaties, alliances, and confederations ...
— The Federalist Papers

... 1860 it had not even borne a name, and since then it had possessed no settled abodes. Here bands of Indians of various tribes had come and gone at will, and here the Indians of the Plains, after horrible deeds of depredation, massacre and reprisal, had found shelter among its mountains. The country lay at the southwest corner of Indian Territory for which the Indians had exchanged their lands in other parts of the United States on the guarantee that the government would "forever secure ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... have to present to your worship I think I may characterise as unprecedented in the annals of Australian history. It is monstrous that such a savage act of reprisal should have been conceived in the midst of the enlightened civilisation of our day. It is typical of a period of savagery and barbarism, and I venture to assert that even were we living under such barbaric conditions, when human life was held cheaply, an act so atrocious as this ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... him; and Wunpost had been obliged to throw down on him with his six-shooter and order him off up the canyon. It was taking a big chance to allow him to live at all and, not to tempt him too far along the lines of reprisal, Wunpost left the Apache afoot. His gaunted pony was feeding hobbled, down the canyon, and Wunpost took off the rawhide thongs and hung them about his neck, after which he drove him on with his mules. But even at that he was taking a chance, or so at least it seemed, ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... the Emperor might have justified a reprisal, but Maximilian was too old a statesman to listen to the voice of passion, where policy alone ought to be heard. He had not derived from the truce the advantages he expected. Far from tending to accelerate a general peace, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... men the most vulnerable. 'Who calls?' asks the old shepherd in As You Like It. 'Your betters,' is the insolent answer. And what is the shepherd's rejoinder? 'Else are they very wretched.' By what retort, reprisal, or repartee could it have been made half so manifest that the insult had lighted upon armour of proof? Such is the invincible independence ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... Correspondence was also constantly going on between the officials of various towns for the settlement of individual points of dispute, for the return of fugitive apprentices, asking that justice might be done to aggrieved citizens, and on occasion threatening reprisal. Southampton had formal agreements with more than seventy towns or other trading bodies. During a period of twenty years the city authorities of London sent more than 300 letters on such matters to the officials of some 90 other towns in England ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... the place. First, for ourselves (thanks be to God) we had not a man sick two days together in all our voyage; whereas others that went out with us, or about that time on other voyages (especially such as went upon reprisal,) were most of them infected with sickness, whereof they lost some of their men, and brought home a many sick, returning notwithstanding long before us. But Verazzano, and others (as I take it, you may read in the Book of Discoveries), do more particularly ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... great Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... on this touch of reprisal in Narcissa's manner. If old Persimmon Sneed had deemed her coming forth to meet them superfluous, she in her own good judgment could deem her presence at table an ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... than a defeat, and that the country at large, who submit with difficulty to the verdict of absolving juries, will rise with indignation at this evidence of a jury prepared to exercise a vindictive power, and actually make the law the agent of reprisal. I have failed in all—utterly failed. Some reproach me as faint-hearted and craven; some condescend to treat me as merely mistaken and misguided; and some are bold enough to hint that, though as a military authority I stand without rivalry, as a purely ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... not amongst them as a perfect stranger, and in all his former transactions with the natives, he had invariably found that he ultimately obtained their good will by a show of forbearance and lenity, more than by a determined spirit of resistance and reprisal. In no instance was this principle more completely verified than in the travels of Major Denham, in which in several instances, had he not maintained a complete control over his temper, on the insults and affronts offered to him by the natives, the consequences, would doubtless have ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... artist. Finding, perhaps, the coarsest of the sketches, one in keeping with the "fat and splendid pig from the drove of Epicurus," he in his turn wrote the name of Holbein above the wanton boor at his carousals. It was a reprisal not more delicate than the spirit with which subjects too sacred to have been named in the same breath with Folly,—the very words of our Lord Himself,—had been dragged into such company. But though it, too, was a joke, this little slap of wounded amour propre has found writers to draw from ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... for equivocation. Craig's frenzy demanded candor and threatened reprisal if the truth were not forthcoming. Mern told part of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... Government was the only nation which had refused to join the agreement to abandon the use of letters of marque and reprisal for destroying the unarmed vessels of commerce in time of war. This unfortunate piece of diplomacy gave Jefferson Davis the opportunity to strike his first blow at the power and prestige of ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Aur! and this last is the shout of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. (Villemain, Litt. du Moyen Age, i. 99; Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 364, 506; Pertz, Script. xviii. 239; Muntaner, 269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper, narrating an act of gallant and successful reprisal (only too rare) by country folk on a body of the brigands who are such a scourge to parts of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the villains raised a shout of "Ad ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... excitement of their mother, but took little interest in an event which, in the course of their experience, had found so many parallels. By command of their father, the tents were thrown into the vehicles, as a sort of reprisal for the want of faith in their late ally, and then the train left the spot, in its usual listless and ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... propriety of being moderate and just, because in that is found the advantage and security of each; they will perceive that the wish to enjoy at the expense of another is a false calculation of ignorance, because it gives rise to reprisal, hatred, and vengeance, and that dishonesty is the never-failing offspring ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... how this dictatorial power will be exercised? On the 3d of March, Sir, I had not forgotten, it was impossible that I should have forgotten, the recommendation in the message at the opening of that session, that power should be vested in the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal against France, at his discretion, in the recess of Congress. Happily, this power was not granted; but suppose it had been, what would then have been the true condition of this government? Why, Sir, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... girls had no access to the general daily news, or I knew there would have been shoutings of triumph over Governor Magoffin. Other governors of other States followed his example. Jefferson Davis declared in a proclamation that letters of marque and reprisal would be issued. Everything wore the aspect of ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... reprimand, all present looked at each other with indications of marked displeasure. Sir Aymer was highly offended, but saw it was no time to indulge in reprisal. He bowed until the feather which was in his barret-cap mingled with his horse's mane, and without reply—for he did not even choose to trust his voice in reply at the moment—headed a considerable body of cavalry by the straightest road back to the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... an iron code, requiring at every step self-negation, fortitude, submission, courage, patience; the self-control which should take the uttermost provocation from those in command without even a look of reprisal, and the courageous recklessness which should meet death and deal death; which should be as the eagle to swoop, as the lion to rend. And he was not found wanting ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... day of September the French garrison, which was now reduced from fifteen to five thousand five hundred men, evacuated the citadel of Namur. Boufflers, in marching out, was arrested in name of his Britannic majesty, by way of reprisal for the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse, which the French king had detained contrary to the cartel subsisting between the two nations. The mareschal was not a little discomposed at this unexpected incident, and expostulated warmly with Mr. Dyckvelt, who assured him that the king ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... affected relations is uncertain, but the inhabitants generally exhibited considerable hostility, and headed by some chiefs, showed an inclination to attack a watering party. Thefts followed, and the capture of a canoe as a reprisal caused a scuffle on the beach, in which the Englishmen were worsted by the crowd, though a friendly ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... should seek, not to punish, but to cure. Personal or class enmities never yet helped the world to advance. It will be fortunate if men can be taught to see how useless such enmities are in this case; and how little revenge and reprisal can ever do ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... true, and I knew it, but, manlike, I must take some reprisal from the truth. "Your mother told me," I said, "that you have a great knack of hurting ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... to recognise the S. American Republics and Brazil, and at the same time to adopt measures of reprisal against Porto Rico and Porto Cabildo, unless the Royalist Governors of those places will give up the Lord Collingwood, and cancel their ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... for delay. They made graves for the dead, pallets for the wounded. At sunrise the train moved on, grim, grave, dignified and silent in its very suffering. There was no time for reprisal or revenge. The one idea as to safety was to move forward in ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... state of mind of a man to whom a dark, overcrowded tenement had ever been as a personal affront, now suddenly finding himself commissioned with letters of marque and reprisal, as it were, to seize and destroy the enemy wherever found, not one at a time, but by blocks and battalions in the laying out of parks. I fed fat my ancient grudge and grew good humor enough to last me for a dozen years in those ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... preceded it; making fearful chorus. And now also the other Parlements, at length opening their mouths, begin to join; some of them, as at Grenoble and at Rennes, with portentous emphasis,—threatening, by way of reprisal, to interdict the very Tax-gatherer. (Weber, i. 266.) "In all former contests," as Malesherbes remarks, "it was the Parlement that excited the Public; but here it is the Public that excites ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Mexico in 1914 as "measures short of war," and now someone referred to the British restrictions on neutral commerce as "measures short of blockade." The British sought another escape from their predicament by justifying this proceeding, not on the general principles of warfare, but on the ground of reprisal. Germany declared her submarine warfare on merchant ships on February 4, 1915; Great Britain replied with her announcement of March 1st, in which she declared her intention of preventing "commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving Germany." The British advanced this procedure as a retaliation ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... the glorious moonlight, and Jack was commandeered to act as her escort. It was a good opportunity for the lady to show that renegade, Master Bobby Smart, that he was not indispensable. His yawn at dinner deserved a reprisal. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... of Britain, who breathed nothing but war and vengeance against the proud and arrogant Spaniards. The merchants had lost all patience under their sufferings, and became clamorous for letters of reprisal, which at length they obtained. Public credit arose, and forwarded hostile preparations. All officers of the navy and army were ordered to their stations, and with the unanimous voice of the nation war was declared against Spain on the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... was to force Great Britain in particular, but other foreign countries as well, to make such trade agreements as the prosperity of the United States demanded. The only hope seemed to lie in a commercial policy of reprisal which would force other countries to open their markets to American goods. Retaliation was the dominating idea in the foreign policy of the time. So in 1784 Congress made a new recommendation to the States, prefacing it ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... wasting any of the merchandise. Thus did he obey the order given him that there should be no sack, but that he should bring it as he had found it, with all fidelity; since it was not taken as an absolute prize, but by way of reprisal, as I have written in another letter. In regard to the said Diego Lopez Lobo not being a Castilian citizen but a Portuguese (which has been the rock of offense to auditors and citizens, and the motive which has induced the city to complain to your Majesty), I am not aware that it is a crime ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,"—the attorney changed to French,—"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... informed of this outrage, Oglethorpe fitted out and manned a gun boat, and pursued them by water and land, above a hundred miles; but they escaped. By way of reprisal, however, he passed the St. John's into Florida; drove in the guards of Spanish horse that were posted on that river; and advanced as far as a place called the Canallas; at the same time sending Captain Dunbar with a party to find out ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... of doing anything there, we were done! The veriest urchin that ever crept through the High Street is more than a match for the most scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art; with the Scotch it is nature. They pick your pockets without using their fingers for it; and they prevent reprisal by having nothing ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Indians were all bitter about this because: "All of us cry at a funeral whether we are drunk or not. That's the way the Washo do it." (This funeral was that of a murder victim and the sheriff was present because he feared there might be a reprisal attempt.) ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs

... Revolution, and in particular the forks of the Ohio, we see a population very different in character from that of the older settlements. The peace-loving Quaker clung to the eastern counties, where life and property were secured from raid and reprisal, and formed his ideas of the Indian character and deserts from the red men, who, either Christianized or demoralized, preferred the grudging charity of civilization to the rude and frugal spoils of the chase, or the blood-stained rapine of war. This specimen ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... party swelled an exceeding bitter, angry cry; the grim, deadly exasperation of men goaded to the point of recklessly attempting ruthless reprisal upon their hidden enemy. With a total disregard of personal safety many of them sprang up out of cover, as if to charge upon ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... did, that every girl had a perfect right to humiliate a "masher" to the extent of her ability, I once went, it's hard to admit it, but really I did go, too far in reprisal. Well, at all events, I was made to feel rather ashamed of myself. We were presenting "Alixe" at Mr. Daly's Broadway Theatre, just after the fire, and the would-be lady-killer was abroad in the land and unusually active. There was seldom ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... municipal authority, but with many of the rights of sovereignty. They entered into commercial treaties with foreign powers; superintended the defence of the city in time of war; provided for the security of trade; granted letters of reprisal against any nation who might violate it; and raised and appropriated the public moneys for the construction of useful works, or the encouragement of such commercial adventures as were too hazardous or expensive for individual ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... shown into our rooms. Late that night about two hundred fellows arrived from Crefeld, and Muller, finding he could not intimidate them, made such a noise that he was "choked off" by the commandant. We learnt that this place had been built as a Russian reprisal camp, but that lately Roumanian officers had been confined there. We were the first British these people had ever had to deal with. Hence their very ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... Heidelberg heard the hoarse barking of the accursed pompom, varied by the duller and more menacing note of heavier guns. Anxiously we asked each other what it could be, and reluctantly we came to the conclusion that our comrades were being submitted to shell-fire with no possible chance of reprisal. As the sun rose, the mist did the same, and very soon cheerful messages came twinkling over 'the misty mountain-tops,' announcing that a considerable force of Boers were attacking them, but that they had little fear of not being able to ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... however, before he learned to retaliate on his mischievous persecutors. I remember one instance in which his reprisal came very near involving me in a serious misunderstanding. Our foreman's name was Webster; and Wan Lee presently learned to know and recognize the individual and combined letters of his name. It was during a political campaign; ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... neglected to take any steps in his favour, a declaration of the sense of the House of Commons would have stimulated them to their duty. If they had caused a representation to be made, such a proceeding would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, the address of the House would have given an additional sanction to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than its own reason. But, no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, the merit ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... vessels along the miles of city front. About as many more, the lieutenant said, were at the river's mouth waiting to put to sea, but the towboats were all up here being turned into gunboats or awaiting letters of marque and reprisal in order to nab those very ships the moment they should reach good salt water. Constance and Miranda tingled to tell him of their brave Flora's investment, but dared not, it ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... necessity of authorizing those means of force to which Admiral Berkeley has resorted without authority, but which the continued repetition of such provocations as unfortunately led to the attack upon the Chesapeake might render necessary, as a just reprisal on the part of His Majesty." No doubt Rose did his best to soften the tone of these instructions, but he could not fail to make them clear; and Madison, who had conducted these informal interviews, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... my second point," said Somerset. "For I observed you to employ the word 'indiscriminate.' Now, surely, a scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the very acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate and, pardon me, of ineffectual reprisal." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... those who are eligible, "consecrates the aristocracy of wealth." The poor, who are excluded by the decree, must regard it as invalid; register themselves as they please and vote without scruple, because natural law has precedence over written law. It would simply be "fair reprisal" if, at the end of the session, the millions of citizens lately deprived of their vote unjustly, should seize the usurping majority by the threat ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... disturbed the inclosure, played curiously on their faces. The stones suddenly echoed a slap. Tante-gra'mere's struggling wrath, which Wachique had tried to keep bound in the coverlet, having found an outlet, was swift as lightning in its reprisal. The stings of the whiplash had exhilaration and dignity compared to this attack. It was the climax of her midget rages. She forgot the breeding of a gentlewoman, and furiously struck her ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... were all predetermined and enforced, then the social contract would be nothing but a conspiracy against the liberty and well-being of the most ignorant, the most weak, and most numerous individuals, a systematic spoliation, against which every means of resistance or even of reprisal might become a right and a duty.... The social contract is of the essence of the reciprocal contract; not only does it leave the signer the whole of his possessions; it adds to his property; it does not encroach upon ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... large body of militia under General Winder at Bladensburg, and occupied Washington, where he burned all the public buildings. However deplorable such an act may seem, it is well to note that it was a fair and even merciful reprisal after the action of the Americans at York and Newark. Ross did not attempt to retain the city, but evacuated it on the next day and re-embarked on the 30th. On September 12 he landed near Baltimore, but was immediately killed in an attack ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... superseded, and the wasteful expense of litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age, begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children will no longer be considered as increasing ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... of resistance, and that was in Massachusetts. Our first overt act of war, was Mr. Henry's embodying a force of militia from several counties, regularly armed and organized, marching them in military array, and making reprisal on the King's treasury at the seat of government, for the public powder taken away by his Governor. This was on the last days of April, 1775. Your formal battle of Lexington was ten or twelve days before that, and greatly overshadowed in importance, as it preceded ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Such a reprisal upon Mr. Metaphor's yoke-fellow, who was by no means remarkable for her beauty, could not fail to operate upon the hearers; and as for the bard himself, he was evidently ruffled by the reflection; to which, however, he, without hesitation, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Otah returned from Far End and immediately called Council, even as Kurho was calling Council. Little had been gained, little proven; the perilous thing was still there, that monstrous means of death that might come in a moment of temper or reprisal to either tribe. Alas, such weapons were not easily relinquished—and who would ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse

... you to distinguish between a spirit of reprisal, in what I do, and that of retaliation, which actuates your present violence. What our enemies had robbed us of, as far as they can restore, I take again. Their bread shall feed our famishing country; their wool clothe its nakedness. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... the guilt the first suggestion of which excited her scornful laughter, and she knew it to be more than probable that her father had yielded to temptation purposely put in his way. She was not unconscious of the power of reprisal which so gross a plot put into her hands, though it was true that the secrecy Dagworthy had maintained in his intercourse with her left but her bare assertion for evidence against him. Yet the thought was profitless. Suppose he did not ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... conduce to the best moral condition. Left in poverty and galled by outrage, wrongs will be resorted to which otherwise would be foreign to a natural disposition. If the influences of a more refined age had not penetrated the remote glens, then a rougher reprisal must be expected. The coarseness, vice, rapacity, and inhumanity of the oppressor must of necessity have a corresponding influence on their better natures. If to this it be added that some of the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... aristocrat by the mob at Gisors and put to death behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries previously, his ancestor had been taken prisoner in a fair fight. A modern writer has spoken of this murder "as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson for the writings and conduct of the grandfather." But M. Sainte Beuve observes as to this, he can see nothing admirable in the death of the duke, and if it proves anything, it is only ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... her own high-priced and indifferent manufactures. In a word, she would lose the monopoly of trade which she at present possesses in these provinces. But, on the other hand, were Turkey animated by a spirit of reprisal, she might throw such obstacles in the path of her more powerful neighbour as would almost compel her to ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... care for Gaeta at first, and had even feigned annoyance at the temporary addition to our party, while in reality he could have had little genuine wish for my society, or he would not now betray such eagerness in the game he was playing. The vague sense of wrong I suffered gave me a wish for reprisal of some sort, and the only one convenient at the moment was to prevent the offender from having a clear course. I found a certain mean pleasure in stirring the Boy to jealousy by reviving, when I could, some half-dead ember of Gaeta's former interest in me, and his face showed sometimes that ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... serenaded us, and came near enough to our camp-fire to seize a small terrier belonging to one of the party. The poor animal, unused to the dangers around, had the temerity to run out and bark at the pack—he soon after gave one agonizing yelp, and we never saw him again. As a reprisal, three of the party fired, and brought one of the wolves to the ground; he was of great size, and, I should say, could have carried away a sheep, or a good sized hog (of which they are very fond), with ease. We could not, however, skin him—he was so infested with ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... explanation in regard to the vessel captured. He again asserted the right of the French king to the lands occupied by his troops, and by his orders four Boston schooners were seized at Louisbourg as a reprisal for the brigantine ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... towards his accomplice. "This man," they said,—"the brave, the resolute, the generous, was executed to death without mercy for stealing a purse of gold, which in some sense he might consider as a fair reprisal; while the profligate satellite, who took advantage of a trifling tumult, inseparable from such occasions, to shed the blood of twenty of his fellow-citizens, is deemed a fitting object for the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. Is this to be borne?—would ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... years longer. It is issued only to a citizen or resident of the United States. A patent is now granted to an inventor for 17 years, without the privilege of extension. Any crime punishable with death is a felony. "Letters of marque and reprisal" are commissions given to persons authorizing them to seize the property of another nation By the term "high seas" is meant the open ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... lose itself in the Pacific, but now that the British fleet has stumbled onto it and forced an engagement, the Australian and Japanese cruisers will all be headed for the south coast of Chile to make reprisal. We know the Germans are short of coal; doubtless some of the fleet have suffered in the engagement with Admiral Craddock's ships, so it's a safe bet they'll run into the Atlantic now and raid the Falkland ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... chafing under the position forced upon him, and tried to divert his companion from her purpose. He knew well why she had chosen that exposed position for their interview. Now, as her outstretched hand embarrassed him, he made reprisal; he tried to take it in his in ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... is almost wholly in the hands of the Chinese, many of whom are men of great wealth and influence. There was also a small colony of Japanese, but, as a result of the boycott which the Chinese had instituted against them in reprisal for Japan's refusal to evacuate Shantung, they were unable to find markets for their wares or to obtain employment and, in consequence, were being forced to leave the island. The only American in the Celebes when we were there ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... annalists of these Indian wars are to be found the records of countless deeds of individual valor and cowardice, prowess and suffering, of terrible woe in time of disaster and defeat, and of the glutting of ferocious vengeance in the days of triumphant reprisal. They contain tales of the most heroic courage and of the vilest poltroonery; for the iron times brought out all that was best and all that was basest in the human breast. We read of husbands leaving their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... it, had fallen like a bomb-shell into the family circle of Don Mariano de Silva. Unfortunately the same messenger had failed to report the assassination of Don Luis Tres-Villas—for the simple reason that he had not heard of it. His hosts, therefore, remained ignorant of the cause of this terrible reprisal. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... reproach which he cast on his wife. No man, however meek, or however bowed down with sorrow, will bear unmoved a gratuitous mention of his debts; it seems to wound him with all the rancor of insult, and to enrage him with the hopelessness of adequate retort or reprisal. It is an indignity, like taunting a ghost with cock-crow, or exhorting a clergyman to repentance. He flung himself all at once into the conversation, to bar and baffle any renewed allusion to that subject, and it was accident rather than intention which made him ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... the men was no longer masked by sullen silence. It broke out into open hostility almost the moment their loss was discovered, and it took the form of bickering and mutual reprisal. Nick laid the charge of her departure at Ralph's door. Applying all the most unreasonable arguments in support of his belief. Ralph retaliated with a countercharge, declaring that Nick had caused her flight by thrusting his unwelcome attentions upon her. And every word they uttered on the subject ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... then. I'll hound him till he is weary of his life! I'll make him remember the day he dared lift his hand against Evan Hartwick! I can feel his blow now! It left a mark on my cheek. That mark is not there now, but the scar is on my heart! Nothing can cure it but full and absolute reprisal! This is my ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... avoided the blow, and naturally sought to make reprisal with the ineffective little weapon he held, lunging out so sharply that it went home in the man's shoulder, and he yelled out, dropped the bar, ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... having recruited their finances, fortune favoured them the remainder of the campaign, and the Chevalier de Grammont, to prove that he had only seized upon the Count's effects by way of reprisal, and to indemnify himself for the losses he had sustained at Lyons, began from this time to make the same use of his money, that he has been known to do since upon all occasions. He found out the distressed, in order to relieve them; officers who had lost ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... presume this confiscation is in the nature of a reprisal. But the stock is mine, not Ed's. I'm an ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... letters of October and November last, some of which must have been received, I repeatedly gave my sentiments in favor of sending cruisers into these seas. The first that arrived was the Reprisal with two prizes; this caused much speculation, and at our first audience after, we were told, that by the treaties subsisting between France and England, ships of war belonging to any foreign power at war with either ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... of the boys formed part of the escort, which was an immense relief to them for, although they were as indignant as the rest, at the murder of their wounded comrades by the Germans; and quite agreed in the justice of reprisal, still, they were greatly relieved when they found that they would not have to be present at ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... artillery and large provisions of warlike and other stores. Museau would be superseded in his command by an officer of superior rank, who might exchange me, or who might give me up to the Indians in reprisal for cruelties practised by our own people on many and many an officer and soldier of the enemy. The men of the fort were eager for the reinforcements; they would advance into Pennsylvania and New York; they would seize upon ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... down the coast before he sighted the cutter, and soon he brought the Arrow within hailing distance. He communicated the news to the officers on board, and a sort of council of war took place immediately. Together, they were not long in forming a plan of reprisal. ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler

... the people around" him. He knew how hard his fight for recognition had been; he knew what direful penalties outraged orthodoxy could inflict; he had in him the somewhat pathetic discretion of a respectable family man. But, dead, he is safely beyond reprisal, and so, after a prudent interval, the faithful Paine begins printing books in which, writing knowingly behind six feet of earth, he could set down his true ideas without fear. Some day, perhaps, we shall have his microbe story, and ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... the Warden of a great prison do in reprisal on a prisoner upon whom the ultimate reprisal has already been wreaked? It may be that Warden Atherton thought of some possible threat, for he began to speak. But my voice had strengthened with the exercise, and I began to sing, "Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu." And sing I did ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... Washington of being very lenient to Tories and other disaffected persons, Putnam knew how to be severe on occasion, and in reprisal for the repeated outrages committed by Governor Tryon's murderous marauders, he destroyed by fire several residences of noted loyalists, and fell upon Colonel DeLancey's infamous "Cowboys," taking seventy-five prisoners, including ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... have borrowed a "Big Bertha" and are meditating a bombardment of Lisbon by way of reprisal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various

... of my squadron was too great for forbearance, so that I compelled her to come to an anchor, though not before we were obliged to fire upon her. I then turned all the officers ashore, and took possession of her; the Protectoral authorities, by way of reprisal, detaining a boat belonging to the flag-ship, and imprisoning the men; but, rightly calculating the consequences of such a step, they were soon set at liberty, and the boat was, on the same night, permitted to ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... been attended with happy effects, as you will see by the enclosed copy of a letter from the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool to that of Bristol. The natural antipathy of the nation is such, that their passions being once fully excited, they will proceed to such acts of reprisal and mutual violence, as will occasion clamors and altercations, which no soft words can palliate. As I pretend to know something of the counsels of both nations, I know there are strong advocates for war in both. The more reasons they have to produce in favor of their system, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... received in the amicable spirit with which it was tendered. There was none of the rancour of the vendetta in these little encounters; if a man happened to be blotted out, it was his ill luck, that was all, and there was rarely any thought of reprisal. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... it was better for him that he should. I wouldn't give a sou for any of these republicans if they chance to fall into the clutches of King WILLIAM. It is reported that he has issued an order for the strangulation of all French children between the ages of three and five, in reprisal for the treacherous blowing up of ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various

... there is a sense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generation after generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword to sword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes; this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in more recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on our German enemies with the hideous weapon which ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... war by Germany against Russia on Saturday, August 1st, various sincere efforts were made to stave off the world-shaking catastrophe. Arranged chronologically, these events may thus be summarized: Russia, on July 24th, formally asked Austria if she intended to annex Serbian territory by way of reprisal for the assassination at Sarajevo. On the same day Austria replied that it had no present intention to make such annexation. Russia then requested an extension of the forty-eight-hour ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... the tidings of a clash—the killing of Comes Flying, son of a chief, and brother to a tribal leader, and then in reprisal, probably, the burning of Bennett's home and the butchery of Bennett. Then Harris had stayed not a moment, but, acting on the understanding of the previous evening, had gone ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... magnanimous heart, instead of combating or concealing them in retreat, without either satisfying or vanquishing them. I know nothing so weak and so vain as to flee before vices, or to hate them without measure; for people only hate them by way of reprisal because they are afraid of them, or else out of vengeance because these vices have played them some sorry turn; but a little loftiness of soul, some knowledge of the heart, a gentle and tranquil humour, will protect you against the risk of being either ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley

... European continent. The war with Birmah was, however costly and sanguinary and was the most prominent matter of public interest in the foreign relations of the British empire. It was in 1851 that the occasion for hostilities was given by the Birmese, and that the governorgeneral took measures for reprisal. Various acts of oppression and cruelty to British subjects were perpetrated by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Assyrian ph[oe]nix now resumes From thee this last reprisal of his plumes; He seems another more miraculous thing, Brighter of crest, and stronger of his wing, Proof against Fate in spicy urns to come, Immortal past ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... visit the "reprisal prisoners," those put in solitary confinement owing to the infliction of this penalty on the officers and men of two German submarines. He found them well treated. "The privacy of this little room," said the Hon. Ivan Hay "is preferable to the liberty and Babel of the Burg dormitories." The ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... drifted into the condition of civil war. Both parties were zealous, vigilant, and denunciatory. In nearly every settlement suspicion led to combination for defense, combination to some form of oppression or insult, and so on by easy transition to arrest and concealment, attack and reprisal, expulsion, theft, house- burning, capture, and murder. From these, again, sprang barricaded and fortified dwellings, camps and scouting parties, finally culminating in roving guerrilla bands, half partisan, half predatory. Their distinctive ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... told in the ballad is a piece of history, and belongs originally to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Andrew Barton was one of three sons of John Barton, a Scots trader whose ship had been plundered by the Portuguese in 1476; letters of reprisal were granted to the brothers Barton, and renewed to them in 1506 'as no opportunity had occurred of effectuating a retaliation.' It seems, however, that this privilege was abused, at least by Andrew, who was reported in June 1511 to Henry VIII. as seizing English ships under the pretext ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick

... as that of Ali Pasha's galley-slaves, because in the Christian fleet there was a considerable proportion of men hired for the campaign. But there was also a servile element, Turks taken prisoner in previous campaigns and chained to the oar in reprisal for the treatment of Christian captives by Ottoman commanders, and a considerable number of what we should now call convicts sentenced to hard labour, a rough lot of murderers, brigands, thieves, and the like. It must be remembered that in most ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... can to pacify Totantora," said Ruth, and she really was somewhat anxious on this point, for the grim countenance of the Indian chief threatened further reprisal. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... a snarl of baffled rage, expecting swift reprisal for his treacherous attempt. Gone was the last vestige of civilization from his face; greed of gold, jewel-hunger, blood-lust, all played about his reddened eyes and cruel, down-drawn mouth. The primitive came through the veneer of culture ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... them, whilst the Royalists, invited to our standard, and employed under our public faith against the Jacobins, if taken by that savage faction, are given up to the executioner without the least attempt whatsoever at reprisal. For this we are to look at the king of Prussia's conduct, compared with his manifestoes about a twelvemonth ago. For this we are to look at the capitulations of Mentz and Valenciennes, made in the course of the present ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... conscious of the smile and of the paraphrasing. In reprisal—though she would not have admitted it was that—she kept her own missives from Elfrida to herself whenever it occurred to her to check the generous impulse of sharing the pleasure they gave her, which was not often, after all. It was the seldomer because she could not help feeling that her ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... British commerce therefore suffered severely, even as far off as the Irish coasts, where it was found necessary to supply convoy to the Belfast linen trade. The Americans were not yet in a position to provide a fleet. On the 23rd of March 1776 Congress did indeed issue letters of marque and reprisal, and efforts were made to fit out a national force. But the so-called "continental" vessels which sailed with the commission of the Congress hardly differed in character, or in the nature of their operations, from the privateers. The British navy was able to cover the retreat of the army from ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... teas, &c., and return home. To engage in this voyage, I was offered the berth I have mentioned, and thirty dollars a-month. The wages were of little moment to me, but the promotion and the voyage were of great account. The ship, too, carried out letters-of-marque and reprisal with her, and there were the chances of meeting some Frenchman in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... at times to glowering at Tom, when his rudeness passed bounds, in a way which made that young man at once uncomfortable and angry, and at times provoked him to clownish attempts at reprisal. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... such as success calls forth; the irritable poet retorted with epigrams of a kind which multiply and perpetuate enmities. His true reprisal was another work, Britannicus, establishing his fame in another province of tragedy. But before Britannicus appeared he had turned aside, as if his genius needed recreation, to produce the comedy, or farce, or buffoonery, or badinage, or mockery (for it is all these), Les Plaideurs. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay, till the united states in congress assembled can be consulted: nor shall any state grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the united states in congress assembled, and then only against the kingdom or state and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the united ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... California received a distinct impetus. When the Justice, with threats made against his life, returned to the State unarmed, and resentful of protection against assault, declaring that when judges must arm to defend themselves from assault offered in reprisal of their judicial actions society must be considered dissolved, he was rendering to our institutions the final and highest possible service. The event that followed, the killing of Terry in the act of striking him the second time from behind, while he sat at table ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... that quarter should be given to all who asked it, to see that the wounded upon both sides were carried into the city to receive attention and care, and in particular that the prisoners—amongst whom were several priests—should receive humane treatment, and escape any sort of insult or reprisal. ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... days. When a deputy was found, six attempts were made to serve the writ. All failed. Finally by a ruse, Mr. Whittaker was caught at his home late at night. He was aroused to a state of violent temper and made futile threats of reprisal when he learned that he must produce the suffrage prisoners at the Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on the ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to address the following letter to the father and mother of Ambulinia, as his address in person he knew would only aggravate ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Reprisal" :   revenge, letter of mark and reprisal, retaliation



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