"Privateer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rudeness of your language, I am resolved to know upon what voyage you are bound; your privateer of love, you Argier's man, that cruize up and down for prize in the Straitsmouth; which of the vessels would you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... long—something like fifty days—yet not altogether uneventful; for in the course of it we were chased by an American privateer, overhauled by a Spanish cruiser, nearly caught by a pirate, and almost swamped in a hurricane; but we fortunately escaped these and all other dangers, and eventually reached our haven ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... bright, and the captain, as brave a man as ever paced a quarter deck, was in the best of spirits, for he expected soon to be home. He had no wife and children to greet him on his return, for Lane was a bachelor. He had served on board a privateer during the War of the Revolution and had done as much damage as any man on salt water to English merchantmen. Like most brave men, Captain Lane had a generous soul, a kind heart, and there was not a man aboard his vessel who would not have died for him. He preserved perfect discipline ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... of the young Baroness de St. Castin, married Pierre de Morpain, the commander of a privateer of St. Domingo. It chanced that he had just brought a ship load of provisions to Port Royal when it was attacked in 1707, and he was able to render good service in its defence. Two years afterwards he was again at Port Royal ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... under, and it will cost as much to hold him down as it did to get him down. Then comes the summer, and the fever will drive our soldiers home; next winter, we must begin at the beginning, and conquer him over again. What use, then, to take a fort, or a privateer, or get possession of an inlet, or to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... Kidd, as a man of integrity and courage, acquainted with the pirates and their places of rendezvous, and as one in all respects fit to be intrusted with the command of a vessel engaged in such a difficult service. He had, indeed, commanded a privateer, in regular commission, against the pirates in the West Indies, in which service he had acquitted himself as a brave and adventurous man. The project not being entertained by the Board of Admiralty, a private adventure against the pirates was suggested by Mr. Livingston, one fifth part ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... blow-gun, I had reveled in blood-and-thunder tales that made the drowsy schoolroom fade before the vast wilderness, the scene of breathless struggles between Indian and settler, or open into the high seas where pirate, or worse-than-pirate Britisher, struck flag to American privateer or man-o'-war. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... this second visit to Lisbon, sent me the following poetical letter, which, for ease, vivacity, and vigorous description, stands at the head of that class of compositions. A friendly vessel, mistaken for a French privateer, adds to the interest. In one part, the poet ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... been at once received, would suffice to set them in motion. I should be accused of having a suspect, probably one of the emigres hidden here, and it would be difficult for me to explain your reception. You must, in the first place, attire yourself in clothes such as are worn by the mate of a privateer. I suppose you have papers, or you would not have been permitted ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... driven off the sea, the privateers continued the naval war. At that time a merchantman could be turned into a capable fighting ship by adding strengthening timbers and providing the necessary guns. Such a ship, when commissioned as a privateer by the United States government, could capture the enemy's merchantmen and on occasion fight small cruisers. For instance, the brig Yankee, 160 tons burden, eighteen guns, 120 men, captured twenty-nine prizes, one of which sold for ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... Paris commune in '71, prime minister from 1906-9, the editor of various papers, and senator now, Clemenceau is properly feared; and he was offered, it is said, a place in the present government, but would accept no post but the highest. He preferred his role of political realist and critical privateer, a sort of Mr. Shaw of French politics, hitting a head ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... expected to. In the Gulf, at the mouth of the river, a Confederate privateer"—the narrator's voice faded out. She began to ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe upon the eastern side of the American continent. Now, not only was this in direct opposition to the realities of the case upon which he built, as first reported (I believe) by Woodes Rogers, from the log book of the Duke and Duchess,—(a privateer fitted out, to the best of my remembrance, by the Bristol merchants, two or three years before the peace of Utrecht,) and so far the mind of any man acquainted with these circumstances was staggered, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... came up at a tremendous pace, reeling beneath an extraordinary spread of canvas, her spray-swept hull disclosing an armament of thirty guns, the decks swarming with men. She was no merchant ship, this was already clear, but there was still the hope that she might be a man-of-war or a privateer. Captain Wellsby looked in vain for her colors. At length he saw a flag whip from the spanker gaff. He laid down the glass with a ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... boats, for after the hot southern climate he had come from he felt as if he could not have too much of the fresh salt air. And there was always excitement, too, in the Channel in those days, when even a fishing-boat might have to make sail and get away at her best speed before a French privateer. ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... very day that Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three fortunate cruises, and was able at the peace to purchase a prize-brig, which he sailed, as master and owner, until the year 1790, when he was recalled to the paternal roof by the death of my grandfather. Being an only son, the captain, as my father was uniformly called, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper |
