"Gunboat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only nation the Moors fear. The reason is that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish these Muslims, while America and other nations send only a little contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally. The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see, not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, France, and America, and put their representatives ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and done with so long—by the time you read this—that the Triple Alliance may be in three pieces; but for the moment the complications of European politics alternately startle and depress my day with furious cannonades of honour from an Italian gunboat and brazen dronings of national anthems from a German band. For the young man whom Tolstoi has described as the most comic figure in Europe, coming to meet Umberto I. in Venice, inconsiderately ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... neat little game out there. It is he who was the inspiration of Roumania. It is he who drafted the secret understanding with Turkey. The war which we hoped for will not take place. From there Hunterleys came in a gunboat and landed on the Italian coast. He lingered at Bordighera for appearances only. He is here, if he can, to break up our conference. I tell you that you none of you appreciate this man. Hunterleys is the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... D. Kelley wished to procure the admittance of a youth into the Naval School. Though a lad he had "shown the mettle of a man" on two serious occasions, while belonging to the gunboat Ottawa. The President has the right to send three candidates to the school yearly, who have served a year in the naval service. Thrilled by the recital of the youth's heroic conduct, the President wrote to the secretary of the navy to have the boy put on the list ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... lean, grey gunboats. As I watched, the sleeping greyhound seemed to move; in another moment the seeming illusion gave way to certainty—it was moving; gradually its pace accelerated and it slipped quietly out toward the open sea. A second gunboat followed, then a third, all making for the open. Immediately we were all excitement, for the rumour had been current that we might be there for several days. But the rumour was speedily disproved ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... had failed by land; they were more successful on the sea, as will be seen in the chapter on Naval Operations. On September 4, 1914, an attempt was made by the Germans to wreck the British gunboat Dwarf, which with the cruiser Cumberland was watching German ships in the Cameroon estuary. The German merchantman Nachtigal tried later to ram the same gunboat and wrecked herself with a loss of 36 men. Further attempts to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Chalaco, a transport of 1000 tons displacement. The third division, under Captain Garcia y Garcia, comprised the Union, a wooden corvette of 1150 tons, and a very famous ship; the Pilcomayo, gunboat; and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... A gunboat came after us and made us turn about in a circle till she was satisfied of our identity, the ship's number being invisible through the mist to those on shore. Ceuta with its snow-white houses lay on the south coast almost opposite Gibraltar. Some large ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... a Federal gunboat lay at anchor, steam up—a blackened, chunky, grimy thing of timber and iron plates, streaked with rust, smoke blowing horizontally from her funnels. And day after day she consulted hill and headland with her kaleidoscopic ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... 1911 France was compelled by disorders in the country to penetrate farther into the interior. Germany under the pretext that her merchants were not getting fair treatment in Morocco, reopened the entire question and sent her gunboat Panther, to Agadir on the west coast of Africa, as if to establish a port there, although she had no interests in that part of the country. France protested vigorously and ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... the command at other points. Two days and nights of hard work were occupied in getting every thing across. One of the men who was actively engaged in the work, describes an apprehension which rendered it more disagreeable. "We had," he says, "the gunboat fever very badly, at that time, and expected every minute to see one come in sight, for they were patroling the river for ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... a stormy interview with the Frau Schwarz, which left her humble for a week, and exceedingly nervous, being of the impression from Peter's manner that in the event of Harmony not turning up an American gunboat would sail up the right arm of the Danube and bombard the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... answered the man, who, by the way, was a turtle fisher, inhabiting a hut on one of the small cays that stretched across the entrance of the lagoon which the yacht was approaching. "A gunboat has been cruising about the bay of late, but she steamed away yesterday morning, after communicating with the shore, and we have ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... meet with disaster, you will, as a last resort, destroy the steam machinery, and, if possible, to escape, set fire to your gunboat, or sink her, and prevent her falling into the ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Island, on the coast of Georgia. Until then, the flagship, so to speak, was to be the "Ben De Ford," Captain Hallet,—this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, and an eight-inch howitzer. Captain Trowbridge (since promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... crew put off in the ship's boat to seek assistance, but they lost their mast and had to rely on the oars, and drifted for several days before being picked up in the Coral Sea. A gunboat will be despatched immediately, but since it cannot reach the island for at least five days, it is greatly to be feared that it will arrive only to find that ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... to furnish to the Republic a gunboat at moderate cost, to be reimbursed to the United States by installments. Such a vessel is needed for the safety of that State against the native African races, and in Liberian hands it would be more effective in arresting the African slave trade than a squadron in our own hands. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... angry captive bit his thumbs on the taffrail of the guard-ship, and gazed either at vacancy or the waters of the Senegal. At the end of that period, a gunboat transferred our convict party to the frigate Flora, whose first lieutenant, to whom I had been privately recommended, separated me immediately from my men. The scoundrels were kept close prisoners during the whole voyage to France, while my lot was made as light as possible, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the gunboat Annapolis have been sent in search of the Silver Heels, but have returned to port without finding any traces ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 54, November 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... not do that," said the privateersman, with a good deal more energy than the other thought the occasion warranted. "I warned you that there was a Yankee gunboat over ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Fenshawe, whose arrest was due to his persistent defense of Baron Franz von Kerber's undertaking. The latter must remain in custody, and I warn you, and intend to give the same warning to all persons on board your vessel, that a gunboat is patrolling the coast with the most positive instructions to sink the Aphrodite if any attempt be made to land on Italian territory, elsewhere than at a ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... expedition up St. Mary's River, Ga. The two captains and their vessels then joined Admiral Cockburn at Cumberland Island, and on the 25th of February were informed officially of the existence of peace. Three weeks afterward the American gunboat, No. 168, Mr. Hurlburt, sailed from Tybee Bar, Ga., bearing despatches for the British admiral. [Footnote: Letter from Com. Campbell to Sec. of Navy, Mar. 29, 1815. including one from Sailing-master John H. Hurlburt ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... theatres of conflicts that would not have disgraced the salt waters of ocean itself, at the period to which our story refers the flag of England was seen to wave only on the solitary mast of some ill-armed and ill-manned gunboat, employed rather for the purpose of conveying despatches from fort to fort, than with any serious view to acts either of aggression ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the Press won't get hold of the story," he said. "Just imagine the headlines. 'Grave International Crisis.' 'Naval Encounter in the Cyrenian Sea.' 'Imperial Gunboat'—they'd be sure to say gunboat, you know—'attacked by a girl.' If it had been a man! But a girl! However, I won't mention the matter. If you fix that fellow up with a set of false teeth I daresay nobody will ever hear about ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... rose at dawn in the narrowest part of the channel, which is about one mile and a half across, all the forts fired at her. The water, too, was thick with steamboat patrols, out of which E14 selected a Turkish gunboat and gave her a torpedo. She had just time to see the great column of water shoot as high as the gunboat's mast when she had to dip again as "the men in a small steamboat were leaning over trying to catch hold of the top of ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... gentleman listen to what he doesn't know?" said Fabula, who had suddenly recovered his voice. "Certainly the gunboat is chasing us, and that's why we are showing him our heels. For, look you, they wanted to take the white-faced maiden into the sultan's harem, but her father would not consent; he preferred to escape with her from Turkey, and now ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the following day they all returned to Port Arthur, and anchored in the roadstead, under the guns of the batteries. The pith of the Akashi's report, therefore, was that there were two Russian ships—the new cruiser Variag, and the gunboat Korietz—at Chemulpo, four cruisers and an armed merchantman at Vladivostock, while the remainder of the Russian fleet was ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... up a year or two before this, but the earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell's yard at Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the "Staunch," built for the Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united to the Elswick enterprises, and a ship-yard at the ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... abandoned by all, like the Great Eastern, on account of its dimensions. My uncle seized it, stuck it in the amber mouthpiece that is so familiar to me, lighted it, and under the pretext that you must always first get the tobacco to burn evenly, went out trailing behind him a cloud of smoke, like a gunboat at full speed. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... battle.] This 'progress' had been made in 1801. But in 1812, when Jefferson's disciple, Madison, formally declared war, not a single keel had been laid. Meanwhile, another idea of naval policy had been worked out into the ridiculous gunboat system. In 1807, during the crisis which followed the Berlin Decree, the Orders-in-Council, and the Chesapeake affair, Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paine: 'Believing, myself; that gunboats are the only water defence which can be useful to us, and protect us ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood |
