"High-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought fit for their rather indefinite ill-doing. They had not murdered us, they had robbed us of nothing but the provisions they had eaten, they had, after all, as much right on the island as ourselves. Yet there remained their high-handed conduct in invading our camp and treating us as prisoners, with the threat of darker possibilities. I fancy that Santa Marinan justice works mainly by rule of thumb, and that the courts do not embarrass themselves much ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... with his cane and then shut him up in the Hohentwiel, where he lay for four years without light, table, chair or bed. In like manner the patriotic publicist, Moser, was imprisoned for five years, without trial and without sentence, because he had withheld his consent to the duke's high-handed proceedings. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the head of two hundred horsemen across a stretch of country including hill and forest, to fall like a bolt from the blue on the suspected Prince in the midst of his gathering warriors, was a handsome piece of daring, and the high-handed treatment of the Prince was held by his advocates to be justified by the provocation, and the result. He scattered an unprepared body of many hundreds, who might have enveloped him, and who would presumptively have stood their ground, had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... alone. She not only avoided him herself, but the entire party seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to keep him from her. It roused all the fight in his Slavic blood, and he determined not to be outwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. He crossed the room and boldly broke into the conversation of the group in which ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... the Deanery all that day. On the morrow he heard, to his relief, that Oliver had returned to London with the unedifying Chipmunk. He took Peggy for a drive in the Rolls-Royce, and told her of Oliver's high-handed methods. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... nothing of the little James's presence. There was, however, a consultation between the two Regents, and Douglas's letter was read with such angry comments as may be supposed. The Earl's contempt evidently cut deep, and strongly emphasised the necessity of dealing authoritatively with such a high-handed rebel against the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... however, the case was different. Each had a few adherents, who would not have submitted to such an arbitrary cruelty; and Le Gros was influenced by the fear of a general "skrimmage," in which more than one life,—among the rest perhaps his own,—might be forfeited. The time for such a high-handed measure had not yet arrived; and when it came to the question of "Who dies next?" it was still found necessary to resort to ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... in a high-handed manner," she confessed to Gloriana, as they were preparing for bed that night, "but I couldn't bear to think of that selfish old cat—yes, that's what she is,—imposing upon Mrs. McKittrick again. I remember the boys, though it was quite a while ago that they were here. They ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... of a few semi-savages. No attempt was made to penetrate into the ulterior of the island, where, as modern experience shows, many great difficulties would have had to be overcome. Peking took serious umbrage on account of Japan's high-handed conduct—for such it seemed to Chinese eyes. In the first place, the statesmen of the Middle Kingdom contended that the Ryukyu Islands could not properly be regarded as an integral part of the Japanese empire; and in the second place, they claimed that, in attacking Formosa, Japan ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of President Buchanan. The Territorial Legislature was in session when the subject was agitated by the California newspapers. A young statesman of that body, thirsting for fame, rose to his feet and in vociferous tones and with frenzied gestures, denounced this high-handed action of California in changing the name of that Lake without consulting the sister commonwealth of Nevada, as, according to the map, half of that noble sheet of water was in Nevada, and such action would require ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... annex their territory by force should the fortunes of war favour her—all these facts, which we may say are proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, form a most serious indictment. They substantiate the charge that Germany by acting throughout in this high-handed way has deeply violated the natural laws of the Comity of Nations, which are the safeguards of Civilization, and they confirm the rightful claim of Europe to sit in judgment ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... disappointment was so keen and so general that good-natured "old David"—as our genial "first" was dubbed by all hands—took it upon himself to respectfully remonstrate with the skipper upon so arbitrary and high-handed a treatment of the ship's company, with no result, however, except that the first lieutenant received an unmitigated snubbing for ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... rebuked King James I for his high-handed proceedings with protestation: "That the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, and that the arduous ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... two contestants to Bayonne, he set them both aside, and gave the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph,—Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister Caroline, taking the throne of Naples. This high-handed proceeding roused the Spanish people to revolt. The officers of Napoleon were several times defeated. A British force under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—appeared in Portugal to lend help to the national movement. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... with a pretty Kanaka girl to carry the drum and pass round the saucer; and every night when he hadn't a special engagement he would make the round of the bars, picking up what little he could. If there was a ship to be sold at auction, or a public meeting to protest against a high-handed something, it got to be the fashion to plaster the notice of it on Doc's back, him playing under a tree for all he was worth with the sweat pouring down his face, while all hands turned out to see what was the rumpus. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... and manifest common generosity, it is enough. They would bring down this exalted standard to our own diminutive stature, so that we can measure ourselves by it without inconvenience. But all such efforts are high-handed rebellion, and will prove utterly vain. God has placed it on a pedestal high as the eternal throne, and there it will stand and burn forever. We must bind our consciences to this standard; they must rise to its height, and shine with its radiance. If to our selfish hearts ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... officers are necessary thereto, and to advise of the expenses for the supportation of the same, and by what ways it shall be gotten." All was peace for a short time, and the most friendly relations existed between the queen and her Council, till the first high-handed attempt of Henry VIII. to interfere through his sister in the government of Scotland, resulted in her temporary banishment, and the removal of the infant king from ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... in his absence. But treachery and mutiny had been at work. Matters had gone ill with the colony, and Columbus did not improve the situation by his presence. He was a brilliant navigator, but no statesman. Complaints reached Spain, and a Spaniard was sent out to replace Columbus. This high-handed official at once put the poor navigator in chains and placed him on board a ship bound for Spain. Queen Isabella was overwhelmed with grief when the snowy-haired explorer once again stood before her, his face lined with suffering. He was restored ...
— 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
... Such tactics were foreign to his nature. He believed in arresting first and investigating afterward. But his department had gone too far in a recent case, and he had been warned by no less a person than the President himself that his high-handed methods would no ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... with burdens not of its own choosing. And now war threatened to undo his work. The young republic was after all not to lead its own life, realize a unique destiny, but to tread the old well-worn path of war, armaments, and high-handed government. Well, he would save what he could, do his best to avert "perpetual taxation, military establishments, and other corrupting or anti-republican ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp practice like that of the shrewd but unprincipled Ulysses. If we were consistent honourable gentlemen, into Charybdis or on to Scylla we should go like lambs; every subterfuge by the help of which we escape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed act of classification that turns a deaf ear to everything not robust enough to hold its own; nevertheless even the most scrupulous of philosophers pockets his consistency at a pinch, and refuses to let the native hue of resolution be sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, nor yet fobbed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... the capital because it would not. That court had been the last remaining check on absolutism in the country, and, as such, an ally of the people; so that although the motives and the measures of Louis were just, the high-handed means to which he resorted in order to carry them alienated him still further from the affections of the nation. The parliament, in justifying its opposition, had declared that taxes in France could be laid only by the Estates-General. The people had almost forgotten the very name, and were ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Juana had resisted with violence when she was imprisoned for a time and had not been allowed to go to her husband, and such resistance was quite natural in a high-spirited young woman who was being treated in a high-handed and illegal manner; but because her jailer had been the Bishop of Burgos, and because she had been detained by royal order, her action was considered as a certain indication of mental derangement. Again, it was asserted that on one occasion, soon after Juana's return to Flanders from the place of ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Sterne's unacknowledged borrowings, his high-handed and extensive appropriation of work not his own, were noted in Germany, the natural result of Ferriar's investigations in England, but they seem never to have attracted any considerable attention or aroused ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... new governors of the country were preparing to invade the rights, and to alter the constitution, and even the public documents, of the Church. The suppression of ten Irish Bishoprics, in defiance of Church opinion, showed how ready the Government was to take liberties in a high-handed way with the old adjustments of the relations of Church and State. Churchmen had hitherto taken for granted that England was "a nation which had for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its theory of government, that, as a Christian nation, she is also a part of Christ's ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... became the favourite all doubts as to Lord Sannox's knowledge or ignorance were set for ever at rest. There was no subterfuge about Stone. In his high-handed, impetuous fashion, he set all caution and discretion at defiance. The scandal became notorious. A learned body intimated that his name had been struck from the list of its vice-presidents. Two friends ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... every attendant at such services. (317.) A number of Lutherans were cast into prison. Realizing that such harsh measures would prove hurtful to their business interests, the authorities in Holland, in an order dated June 14, 1656, rebuked Stuyvesant for his high-handed procedure, saying: "We should have gladly seen that your Honor had not posted up the transmitted edict against the Lutherans, and had not punished them by imprisonment, . . . inasmuch as it has always been our intention to treat ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... a full-fledged Catholic and believes in Catholicism twenty-four hours each day. By the way, it may be necessary for us to refresh the readers' mind of the fact that Ed Butler of St. Louis, Mo., is considered one of the most high-handed "boodlers" in America, and who has had a number of his "dupes" placed in the state penitentiary and kept himself out of the same institution by a "technicality." But to go back to the point that we wanted to make, we will just say that a Catholic priest in the City of St. Louis by the name of ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... with her then," cried Nan Blythe. Nan secretly thought Faith HAD done a awful thing, but she wasn't going to let Mary Vance run matters in this high-handed fashion. "And if YOU are not you needn't come any more ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the rising in Scotland by the sword, but his means and military skill were unequal to the task. He failed to impose the English Liturgy on his Scottish subjects, but his attempt to do so proved the deliverance of his English subjects from high-handed tyranny. It is only natural that in these circumstances Seaforth, though personally attached to the King, should be found on the side of the Covenant, and that he should have joined the Assembly, the clergy, and the nobles in the Protest, and in favour of the renewal of the Confession ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... residence and on their arrival suddenly found themselves arrested. At the same time their secretaries and papers were seized, and Antony van Stralen, the burgomaster of Antwerp, was placed under arrest. These high-handed actions were the prelude to a reign of terror; and Margaret, already humiliated by finding herself superseded, requested her brother to accept her resignation. On October 6 the office of Governor-General was conferred upon Alva; and shortly afterwards the duchess left the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the fighting certainly must be ourselves. Already, it would seem, the prophecy of the Priest Captain's downfall was assuming a tangible reality; for this rising in arms against him could mean nothing less than that his high-handed refusal to permit us to be carried before the Council of the Twenty Lords had fairly brought matters to a crisis, and that the long-threatened revolution actually ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Flip," said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring at the astonished Postmaster. "'Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you cast your bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. The fact is, the Gov'ment is getting too high-handed! Some o' these bloated officials had better climb down ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the Gessellen-incident, and the outbreak of hostility between Prince Bismarck and Baron de Rozzenbach and Gustav Freitag, the novelist, and the celebrated jurisconsult for whose illegal imprisonment the high-handed chancellor had later to atone. But there apparently resulted from all these disputes that, as the glory of "priority of invention" was so eagerly sought for, there must have been an "inventor!" That was in reality ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... purpose involved is to afford the citizen who, believing himself deprived of his constitutional rights, has failed to obtain redress in the administrative courts, an opportunity to have his case reviewed by a tribunal constituted with special view to permanence, independence, and impartiality. High-handed administrative acts which are covered by statute, however, are beyond its reach, for, like all Austrian tribunals, it is forbidden to question the validity of a duly ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... what an old writer has called “the ayen-bite of Inwyt,” {149b} or, in modern parlance, “remorse of conscience.” But if, judged by the scale of expiation, made in endowment and embodied in stone, these high-handed lords would seem to have been sinners above their more ordinary fellows, we must at least gratefully allow that they have left to us of the present day a goodly heritage, which even our modern vastly increased wealth has not enabled us to emulate. These ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... The high-handed career of this institution imposes upon the constitutional functionaries of this Government duties of the gravest and most imperative character—duties which they can not avoid and from which I trust there will ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... insurrection of negroes at Morant Bay, Jamaica, had threatened to take the most serious shape, when it was stamped out by the high-handed measures of Mr. Eyre. After the first congratulations were over another side to the question called for a hearing. The Baptist missionaries declared that among the negroes who were shot and hanged in terrorem were peaceable subjects, respectable members of their own native congregations, ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... on Cabades became more high-handed in the administration of the government, and introduced innovations into the constitution, among which was a law which he promulgated providing that Persians should have communal intercourse with their women, a measure which by no ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... are laws to punish such high-handed methods as yours, and I'll see that you are punished, and well punished, too. If I can't do it, there are others who will—who will see that ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... supreme control over colonial affairs had been in the hands of the king and his privy council, and the Parliament had not disputed it. In 1624 they had grumbled at James I.'s high-handed suppression of the Virginia Company, but they had not gone so far as to call in question the king's supreme authority over the colonies. In 1628, in a petition to Charles I. relating to the Bermudas, they had fully admitted this ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... the help of the white soldiers, and told him that he would "keep a bullet for him" in case he ever disgraced his high position. Thus retribution lay in wait for him while at the height of his fame. Several high-handed actions of his at this time, including his elopement with another man's wife, increased his unpopularity with a large element of his own tribe. On the eve of the chief's departure for Washington, to negotiate (or so they suspected) for the sale of more of their land, Crow Dog took up his gun ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... this won't do, you know. This is kidnapping, you know—high-handed kidnapping," said the Honourable John Ruffin indignantly. "What ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... high-handed proceeding, and the threat which accompanied it, Jack's patience gave out, and catching up Caesar, as he thought, sent him flying after the retreating tyrant with the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... drawbacks to this system of foreign bureaucracy, which can only be briefly touched on here, but certainly Newman was right when he condemned that mistaken, high-handed measure of the autocratic East India Company—their destruction of all the local treasuries, and the manner in which these funds were diverted into the central treasury. Thus, as he pointed out very clearly, no moneys were left for the repair of roads, bridges, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... for the removal of the Connecticut colonists were the discontent at Watertown over the high-handed silencing by the Boston authorities of Pastor Phillips and Teacher Brown for daring to assert that the "churches of Rome were true churches;" the early attempt of the authorities to impose a general tax; the continued opposition to Ludlow; their desire to oppose the Dutch seizure of the fertile ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... faces around him. They helped him, no doubt, to carry on to the end of his days that high-handed and dignified fight against ill-fortune which he ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... basic fact in this running patter. Each was trying to buck up the other. Jane was honestly worried. She could not say what it was that worried her, but there was a strong leaven in her of old-wives' prescience. It wasn't due to this high-handed adventure of Cleigh, senior; it was something leaning down darkly from the future that worried ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... in connection with the Greek question of 1850, when the English fleet threatened to blockade the Piraeus. Punch was indignant at this high-handed show of strength towards the little kingdom, and taking the mean-looking, grovelling British Lion by the ear (in his cartoon) asks him, "Why don't you hit someone of your own size?" With the exception of the occasion when he disrespectfully represented the noble beast as stuffed ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... States—one, too, that involves none of those offensive associations that cluster round the names of, let us say, Grenville and North. For in looking at Lord Shelburne's career we see a man whose clear-sighted judgment from the first, and consistently, protested against that system of high-handed imperialism which drove thirteen reluctant colonies into a war of independence; who both in office and out of office did his utmost, first to avert, by a policy never of cowardly concession, but of just expediency, the impending storm, and then, when it had burst, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... record of the examinations," said the lady of fashion with a laugh, so pleased at her high-handed conduct that she did not yet feel the pain of the burns, "If that is a crime—well, monsieur must get his ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... was out in the fields when she undertook this high-handed step; and her mother was so dumb with amazement at such unusual behavior that she offered but ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... the little scalp-coffin received from the interior, with a report of this high-handed outrage to the Executive of the Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, at Detroit, that the occurrence might be reported promptly to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... affair as any one could be, and I should be the last person to wish you to do anything rash. I bore with Godolphin's suggestions, and I let him worry you to death with his plans for spoiling your play, but I certainly didn't dream of anything so high-handed as his undertaking to work it over himself, or I should have insisted on your breaking with him long ago. How patient you have been through it all! You've shown so much forbearance, and so much wisdom, and so much delicacy in dealing with his ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... distraction in several games of billiards followed by dinner at his favorite cafe. When he returned to his room late that night he found that his effects had been ransacked by two detectives. Fully incensed by this high-handed procedure he determined to place his inalienable rights in the hands of a lawyer the first thing after the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... talking about "service", but we haven't the temperament to serve. I'd give all I have to be an ordinary cog in the wheel, instead of a confounded outsider who finds fault with the machinery ... Take a great violent high-handed fellow like you. You can sink yourself till you become only a name and a number. I couldn't if I tried. I'm not sure if I want to either. I cling to the odds and ends ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... in Morgan County, as the State election approached, is not altogether clear. President Jackson's high-handed acts, particularly his attitude toward the National Bank, had alarmed many men who had supported him in 1832. There were defections in the ranks of the Democracy. The State elections would surely turn on national issues. The Whigs were noisy, assertive, and confident. Largely through ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... So high-handed an offender against the law and the rights of the people could not escape the notice or the withering rebuke of Mr. King. He fearlessly proclaimed him a convicted felon, and dealt with him as one of the principal of those offenders against all law, human or ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... to be appeased. He threw up his command and went ashore with us, leaving the mate to navigate the vessel. It was rather a high-handed proceeding, perhaps, on the colonel's part, but he was saving his troops from an ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... sixty-seven days on the north Atlantic at that season of the year, their food and firing well spent, cold, homesick, and ill, the bare thought of once again setting foot on any land, wherever it might be, must have been an allurement that lent Jones potential aid in his high-handed course.] ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... dames!" cried a very smart individual, in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel—a personage who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will ces dames desire a salon—there is un vrai petit bijou empty just now," murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... mind torn by fresh doubts Roger walked slowly back into the boudoir. He could not help beginning to be afraid that he was acting foolishly. The high-handed manner in which he had dealt with his stepmother and Sartorius might yet land him in most unpleasant difficulties. Obviously he had no right to restrain their movements, and the fact that he had actually threatened Sartorius was sufficient to bring down punishment upon him. Still, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... a high-handed manner that the dealer never guessed she was acting on her own authority. As she had made a special visit to the farm, accompanied by her groom, he imagined she must have been entrusted by Major Fitzgerald with full powers to buy the pony ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... opposition; and in 1807, when the Tories returned to power, he became foreign secretary in the ministry of the Duke of Portland, of which Mr. Perceval was the leading member. It was then that Canning seized the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, giving as his excuse for this bold and high-handed measure that Napoleon would have taken it if he had not. It was through his influence and that of Lord Castlereagh that Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward the Duke of Wellington, was sent to Spain ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... would be necessary to realise the great Empress's design of creating, by education, "a new race of people." Down to the time of the Crimean War the Governors understood the term "stewards" in a very literal sense, and ruled in a most arbitrary, high-handed style, often exercising an important influence on the civil and criminal tribunals. These extensive and vaguely defined powers have now been very much curtailed, partly by positive legislation, and ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... with me. I found it. Naturally I claim it. I could quote you verbatim the section of the mining law under which I am entitled to maintain this high-handed—er—outrage; but why indulge in such a dry subject? I found this claim, and since I don't feel generously disposed this morning, I'm ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the opinions, and champion the rights of the people, that the latter become discontented and turbulent, and fall into the hands of demagogues: the demagogue always steps in, where the patriot is wanting. There is a common high-handed cant among the high-feeding, and, as they fancy themselves, high-minded men, about putting down the mob; but all true physicians know that it is better to sweeten the blood than attack the tumour, to apply the emollient rather than the cautery. It is absurd, in a country ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... "holdings" did not differ greatly, however, from those of the steel and oil kings, the railroad magnates or any of the other industrial potentates who acquired great wealth by pilfering America and peonizing its people. The whole sorry proceeding was disgraceful, high-handed and treacherous, and only made possible by reason of the blindness of the generous American people, drugged with the vanishing hope of "success" and too confident of the continued possession of its blood-bought liberties. And do the lumber barons were unhindered in their infamous work of debauchery, ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... and your employment!" So that was it—a threat! He would show this high-handed captain that Martin Blake would risk his skin as readily as the next man; and as for his employment—a fig for Smatt, and Dr. Ichi, and all their ilk! They were crooks; this Carew was a crook. They held that girl against her ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... ranchmen and cowboys who gathered around them, among them Gregor Lang and Bill Dantz (an attractive youngster of eighteen who had a ranch half a dozen miles south of the Maltese Cross), were in the minority, but they were respected and feared, and in the face of their opposition even such high-handed scoundrels as Maunders, Hogue, and Williams developed a vein ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... With heaven knows what feelings, she found herself seated beside me, Sophy Smith, while Alicia, beside the doctor, tossed gay remarks over her shoulder. Miss Hopkins realized that all Hyndsville would witness what she herself knew to be high-handed capture by force, but which must hideously resemble capitulation; and she also realized ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... Patty, "that's a high-handed performance! I don't really care, though. Now that I'm here, so comfy, I realise that I am tired." And in about two ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with time and bonds and promises had ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... be for her? For the last two days she had been radiant with new happiness. Everything had seemed to be settled. Her lover, in his high-handed way, had declared that in no important crisis of life would he allow himself to be driven out of his way by the fear of what an old woman might do in her will. When Dorothy assured him that not for worlds would she, though ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Maine. Became a "trader for bever" in New England. In June, 1632, while in Penobscot Bay, a French pinnace arrived and seized his shallop and stock of "coats, ruggs, blanketts, bisketts, etc." Annoyed by this high-handed behaviour, Bull collected together a small crew and turned pirate, thus being the very first pirate on the New England coast. Bull took several small vessels, and was not caught by the authorities, who ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... propaganda to the contrary, remember that this man is not a hypocrite. He is occasionally stupid; he is at times obstinate; he is frequently high-handed; and often he would rather be misunderstood than explain. But he is neither tyrannical nor corrupt. He went into this War because he felt it his duty to do so, and not because he coveted any ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay
... call it that," retorted Mrs. Ross, raising her voice. "I call it a high-handed outrage. The boy ought to be arrested. Are you going to do anything about it, ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... that when there was an advantage of any kind to be secured the men invariably got it. While I was brooding somberly upon this wrong an opportunity came to make a formal and effective protest against the men's high-handed methods. The Quinquennial reunion of all the societies was about to be held, and the special feature of this festivity was always an oration. The simple method of selecting the orator which had formerly prevailed had been for the young men to decide upon the speaker ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... Boston was filled with enthusiasm for the enterprise. The legislature made military service compulsory, quartered soldiers in private houses without consent of the owners, impressed sailors, and altogether was quite arbitrary and high-handed. The people, however, would bear almost anything if only they could crush Port Royal, the den of privateers who seized many New England vessels. On the 18th of September, to the great joy of Boston, the frigates and the transports sailed away, with ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... hundred of his company in a night attack on Berreo's new city of St. Joseph. By dawn he took it. He burnt it down, having first released from a dungeon five caciques fastened together with a single chain. The proceeding was high-handed and summary. Now it would be criminal. It did not bear that character then. Lingard has stigmatised Ralegh as a murderer, on account of the Spanish lives lost during the assault. Berreo and the Spanish Government were less particular. They saw nothing in his conduct adverse to the laws of war and ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... whole, yes. His faults are balanced, I think, by his aristocratic temper. He is too proud consciously to make dirty bargains. High-handed, of course; but that's the race—the race. Things being as they are, I would as soon see him in ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the doleful perplexity of a wealthy and handsome young English knight of the olden time, who, in the course of a border foray, had been captured and carried off to the castle of a hard-headed and high-handed old baron. The unfortunate youth was thrown into a dungeon, and a tall gallows erected before the castle gate for his execution. When all was ready, he was brought into the castle hall where the grim baron was seated in state, with ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... high-handed conduct on the part of European belligerents was very injurious to American trade. By their enterprise, American shippers had become the foremost carriers on the Atlantic Ocean. In a decade they had doubled the tonnage of American merchant ships under the American ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... II. sought to establish arbitrary power in America, as in England, by his prerogative—the Omnipotence of the King; he failed; the high-handed despotism of the Stuarts went to the ground. The next attempt at the same thing was by the legislature—the Omnipotence of Parliament—for a several-headed despotism took the place of the old, and ruled at home with milder sway. It tried its hand in ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... the lawyer, "the newspapers will be full of it in a day or two. We are going to bring suit against the city. It's really a test case that should interest every citizen; a protest against the high-handed actions of the police." ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Normandy founded at Caen, and on the deposition of Stigand was called over by that king to complete the subjection and reform of the Anglo-Saxon Church, which task he undertook with much zeal and not a little high-handed procedure. He assisted the king in the removal of the Saxon bishops and the substitution of Normans in their places, as also in the reformation of the great English monasteries which appear to have fallen into considerable disorder. Lanfranc's character was remarkable for its firmness, and ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... unbusinesslike, I'm afraid. I thought I had enclosed you a copy of their letter to me when I wrote to invite an explanation of your high-handed action." ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... too,—one was a person rather like himself, with the same swaggering high-handed air, who accosted him as we were passing the corner of the square just by the ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... you want," snapped Brett. "Look at your space code book, section four, paragraph six. My rights are fully protected from high-handed orders issued by men like you who think they're bigger than the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... reductio ad absurdum most effectively because he seldom failed to accentuate the absurdity by some instance which made clear to the least learned the force of his argument. Many of his best remembered quaint and picturesque phrases were embodied in his serious demolition of some high-handed presumption of ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... and as it stands is quite out of harmony with present conditions in China. It will have to be modified and recast to be a suitable, just, and practicable national legal instrument for the Chinese people. Moreover, it is frequently overridden in a high-handed manner by the police, who often keep a person acquitted by the Courts of Justice in custody until they have 'squeezed' him of all they can hope to get out of him. And it is noteworthy that, though provision was made in the Draft Code for trial by jury, this provision never ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... indignant at such high-handed proceedings. Arnold remained behind to transact some unfinished business, but was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained several weeks. Seeing no prospect of being released, he feigned insanity, and acted the madman to the life; insomuch that ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... too high-handed anyway," answered another. "I'm loyal to my company; but Lord Selkirk can't set up a military despotism here. Been altogether better if we'd left ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Saskatchewan country, Cuthbert had taken pains to learn all he could about what history had to say of their doings; and he found that in the far past they had been merciless and unscrupulous in their dealings with their employers; though, of course, much of this high-handed style of conducting business is not ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... domination in Upper Canada, I would not be understood as pronouncing a sweeping condemnation upon all the individual members of that body. John Beverley Robinson, for instance, though he lent himself to many high-handed acts of oppression, was a man of undoubted ability, and of a character which inspired respect. His descendants are to-day among the most respected and influential members of society in our Provincial capital. Several others were men of high personal character, and ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... room that night, Algitha finally decided to delay her going for another six months, hoping by that time that her mother would have grown used to the idea, and less opposed to it. Mr. Fullerton dismissed it, as obviously absurd. But this high-handed treatment roused all the determination that Algitha had inherited from her father. The six months had to be extended, in order to procure funds. Algitha had a small income of her own, left her by her godmother, Miss Fortescue. She put aside this, for her purpose. Further delay, through ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... morning, the chief, his son and daughter, and his son-in-law came on board the Resolution, and the three last-mentioned were invited to the Discovery, with a view to their detention there till the deserters should be brought back—an act of high-handed injustice of which, one would suppose, no amount of condescension and familiarity on the part of the English was likely to efface ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... small wonder that more country was explored and opened for fur than for settlement or even for gold; and there were more serious crimes and high-handed robberies over the right to trade a few furs than over any other legitimate business. These things were new to Rolf within the year, but he was learning the lesson, and Warren's remarks about fur stuck in his memory with growing value. Every incident since the trip began ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... forced into the open, and constrained to make the best defence he could in a published speech. In November 1822, Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review, came to the assistance of his brother-clergy against the high-handed tyranny of ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... "and in the meantime, the heir to all this high-handed authority is no better than an ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... in the well, out of revenge, but he knew that it would now be impossible to prove it. Strange to say, Malipieri bore him no grudge, for he knew the people well, and after all, he himself had acted in a high-handed way. Nevertheless, he asked the porter if the man were anywhere in ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... air of cool authority about Bannon that disturbed the men. They had been led to believe that his power reached only the work on the elevator, and that an attempt on his part to interfere in any way with their organization would be an act of high-handed tyranny, "to be resisted to the death" (Grady's words). But these men standing before their boss, in his own office, were not the same men that thrilled with righteous wrath under Grady's eloquence in the meetings over ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... bad again at this moment, for on the 14th I wrote a draft address to the electors of Chelsea, prepared in view of my resignation along with Bright and Chamberlain. I alluded in it to "the non-reversal in the Transvaal of an act of high-handed aggression, which at the time of its inception I had condemned by vote and speech," and also condemned the resort to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Of course they were sympathetic over Madam Bartlett's accident—the Martels' sympathy was always on tap for friend or foe,—but that did not interfere with a frank enjoyment of Quin's spirited account of her high-handed treatment of the family, especially the incident ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... their right as metropolitans. The governor threw himself with all his might into what he had commenced, and gave the bishop to understand that that occasion for dispute would end worse than the past; and he continued to arrange matters in so high-handed a way, that the archbishop feared what the governor threatened. But God permitted that that controversy be settled by the interposition of zealous and influential persons, who mollified the governor; and it was settled that the archbishop should name three ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... Jeff carried out his high-handed measures and appeared that evening at "Marse Perkins's" with a ring of portentous size squeezed on the little finger of his left hand. It had something of the color of gold, and that is the best that can be said of it; but it had left its purchaser penniless. This fact sat ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... raising his eyes, and accompanying an affected indifference with a sigh. It is something he hesitates to disclose. He has erred! his heart speaks, it is high-handed crime! He looks upon her affectionately, a forced smile spreads itself over his face. How forcibly it tells its tale. "Speak out," she continues, tremulously: "I am a sister; a sister cannot betray a brother's secrets." She removes her hand and lays ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... been spoilt by success and a gratified ambition, so that he thinks himself a small Alexander in his own way, and able to conquer any obstacles which may present themselves, has a certain high-handed activity of will about him that does not interfere with his duties in life; he is not made fretful and impatient and exigeant as a woman is—as if he alone of all mankind is to be exempt from misfortune and annoyances; as if his friends must never die, his youth ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... This high-handed diplomacy was backed by formidable demonstrations. The whole country west of the River Sorel, or Richelieu, was occupied by a savage host, and the distant fort of Cataracouy, on the Ontario shore, was with difficulty held against 800 Iroquois, who had burned the farm stores with flaming ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... those high-handed tactics, whereupon certain slight concessions were made in order to placate the offended delegates; but, being doled out with a bad grace, they failed of the effect intended. Belgium received three delegates instead of two, and Jugoslavia ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dudgeon. After a time he was persuaded that the indisposition of the town to meet his reasonable wishes was not due to the citizens at large, but to the machinations of a few unruly agitators among the magistrates. In 1449, therefore, he took a high-handed course of trying to direct the issue of the regular municipal elections, so as to ensure the choice of magistrates on whose obedience he could rely. The appearance of Burgundian troops in Ghent, before the election of mid-August, aroused the wrath of the community, who thought ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... would, however, appear to have continued to hold the manor on lease under the bishop, and to have acted in a somewhat high-handed manner to his spiritual superior, probably under the influence of the change in religious sentiment between the reigns of "the bloody Mary," and her sister Elizabeth of glorious memory. For again we find a document {21b} ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... ascended the throne. During his minority his father acted as regent—a position the latter found to suit him so well that, by-and-by, when his son became of age he refused to abdicate the throne in favor of its lawful occupant, threw off all semblance of allegiance, and assumed a high-handed and arrogant bearing, especially exhibited towards the queen and her family, with whom the regent was at bitter feud. To compass their destruction was then his first care, and he openly declared to the mutinous palace guard that their grievances would not be redressed until they ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... vacillated in their high-handed policy, and gave to General Gage discretionary power as to a continuance of the troops in Boston; and this officer had come to the sensible conclusion that troops were worse than needless, for they were an unnecessary irritation and detrimental to a restoration of the harmony which the representative ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... constantly found among his fellow-countrymen, of working the native up through his own medium, as it were, through his own customs and predispositions, to the soundness of Western methods of government. Therefore, in due time he made some dangerous mistakes. By virtue of certain high-handed actions he was the cause of several riots in native villages, and he had himself been attacked at more than one village as he rode between the fields of sugar-cane. On these occasions he had behaved very well—certainly no one could possibly doubt his bravery; but that was a small offset ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her romance, to dispute anything she would have us believe. The interest of the Sicilian Romance, which is far greater than that of her first novel, arises entirely out of the situations. There is no gradual unfolding of character and motive. The high-handed marquis, the jealous marchioness, the imprisoned wife, the vapid hero, the two virtuous sisters, the leader of the banditti, the respectable, prosy governess, are a set of dolls fitted ingeniously into the framework of the plot. They have more substance than the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the Republicans felt that they had every cause for fear when matters had taken this turn. Relying upon Marshal Leboeuf's assurances that "everything was ready," they saw the prospect of a short sensational campaign like that against Austria in 1859, to be followed by some high-handed stroke of home policy that would sweep most of them into prison or exile. Gambetta could not refrain from bitterly upbraiding Ollivier. "You will find that you have been fooled in all this," he said; "for when the war is over you will be thrown aside like ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... own documents and from the speeches of its leaders, Mr. Spargo shows how Sovietism in its original form has failed to cope with unavoidable human inequalities, and under economic pressure has developed into a high-handed autocracy which is worse than Tsardom and which completely subverts ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... interesting tale it is, for it recounts deeds of the sea quite as audacious and high-handed as anything performed on land by Jesse James and his stage-coach bandits. Up to fifteen or eighteen years ago the estuary bristled with Chinese pirates, and wherever native fishermen and sailors foregathered, at Hong Kong, Canton or Macao, schemes for holding-up and sacking steamers carrying bullion ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... cause of ruin to Denmark in 1863-64 bears a remarkable resemblance to that which produced war in South Africa in 1899, viz. high-handed action of a minority towards men whom they treated as Outlanders, the stiff-necked obstinacy of the smaller State, and reliance on the vehement but (probably) unofficial offers of help or intervention ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose |
