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Indiaman   Listen
noun
Indiaman  n.  (pl. indiamen)  A large vessel in the India trade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Indiaman" Quotes from Famous Books



... high-roofed low-roomed old tenement. Our house belongs to Captain Bragg, not only the landlord but the son-in-law of Mrs. Cammysole, who lives a couple of hundred yards down the street, at "The Bungalow." He was the commander of the "Ram Chunder" East Indiaman, and has quarrelled with the Pocklingtons ever since he bought ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... however, two episodes in which he was so distinctly the central figure that they demand at least a brief narration. In January, 1796, while his ship was repairing, a large East Indiaman, the Dutton, carrying some six hundred troops and passengers, was by a series of mishaps driven ashore on the beach of Plymouth, then an unprotected sound. As she struck, all her masts went overboard, and she lay broadside to the waves, pounding heavily as they broke over her. Pellew was at this ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... I failed to mention in its place, I might as well allude to here. On recovery from that state of physical exhaustion in which the humane captain of the Dutch East Indiaman had found me, my hand rested accidentally upon the pocket of my father's coat, which hung up in the state-room that had been assigned to them. His pocket-book was there. It instantly occurred to me to ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... ships sunk in the passage, there were at Chandernagore the French East Indiaman the Saint Contest (Captain de la Vigne Buisson), four large ships, and several small ones. The French needed all the sailors for the Fort, so they sank all the vessels they could not send up the river except three, which it was supposed ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... heads of her top-gallant sails. She seems a ship steering to the southward, with as many kites flying as an Indiaman in the trades. She looks as if she were carrying royal ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... the bachelor squires who seemed eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-score of times in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath, who had used her so ill. She had flirted all the way to Madras with the captain and chief-mate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season at the Presidency. Everybody admired her; everybody danced with her; but no one proposed that was worth marrying.... Undismayed by forty or fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to Major Dobbin. She sang Irish melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so frequently ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... and we partook of the motion, as we rolled for at least ten minutes before the swell subsided. The other waterspout passed some distance astern. In this gulf some years ago a dreadful catastrophe occurred to a West Indiaman homeward bound, caused by one of the sucking clouds or waterspouts. Several had formed very near her, one of them so near that the master of her was afraid to fire as it might endanger the vessel. It appeared to be passing when a flaw ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... on board of the ship: she was an Indiaman; one of the very few that occasionally are sent out by the Portuguese government to a country which once owned their undivided sway, but in which, at present, they hold but a few miles of territory. She was bound to Goa, and ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... go ashore, as I want to see Captain Sandys. You must be tired reading this long epistle. We took some prizes, one ship laden with Buonaparte's soldiers, one chasse maree laden with resin, and the Cephulus man-of-war brig sent in a West Indiaman laden with sugar, coffee, &c. from Martinique bound to France, and for which we will share by mutual agreements. Give my affectionate love to Ally, Anne, Wilhelmina, Sophia and Jane. I know the want of not being near them as my shirts are going to pieces, as soon as I can afford the sum I will get ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... desire of sailors for fresh animal food, towards the end of a long voyage, we may mention the following circumstance. A Dutch East Indiaman, after beating about for some time in the Indian ocean, became short of provisions. One day, as the crew were scrubbing the deck, a large sea-snake raised itself out of the water, and sprang or crawled aboard. The sailors, who for some time had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various

... on Michaelmas-day, 1800, walking over by Grisedale Tarn to Paterdale, whence he would proceed to Penrith; he took leave of his brother William, near the Tarn, where Ullswater first comes in view; and he went to sea again, in the Abergavenny East-Indiaman, in the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... famine all around, I could not miss an ear, Such plenty smiles upon my board, My garner shows so fair. I wonder how the rich may feel, — An Indiaman — an Earl? I deem that I with but a crumb ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... of his way for a sea-port, bound himself apprentice to the master of a coasting vessel. In this manner he continued to work, to use his own expressions, like a galley-slave for five years, when he obtained the situation of mate of an Indiaman. He progressively rose, till he happened unfortunately to quarrel with his Captain, which induced him to quit the service of the Company. In the course of his voyages to India, and in the Indian seas, he made what he thought an important discovery relative ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... friend," he said, grasping my hand; "I have, unwittingly, been doing you wrong; one may surely be the master of an Indiaman and in possession of a heart too honest to be spoiled ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... of the two as they sat together in the cabin of the Indiaman locked fast in each other's arms, and crying bitterly. The whispered farewell talk exchanged between them—exaggerated and impulsive as girls' talk is apt to be—came honestly, in each case, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... every Indiaman that arrived in the Thames was bringing unwelcome news from the East, all the politics of Sir Josiah were utterly confounded by the Revolution. He had flattered himself that he had secured the body of which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Fountain, a young lady well born, high bred, and a denizen of the fashionable world. Under a strange concurrence of circumstances she coolly married the captain of an East Indiaman. The deed done, and with her eyes open, for she was not, to say, in love with him, she took a judicious line—and kept it: no hankering after Mayfair, no talking about "Lord this" and "Lady that," to commercial gentlewomen; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... captain?" "Will this advance me in the service?" The "Blanche" was soon refitted and at sea again. Several prizes were made, and, greatly to his satisfaction, he was appointed to the command of one of them, with Bonham as his mate, and Dick Rogers as boatswain. She was a richly-laden West Indiaman, recaptured from the enemy. He was ordered to take her to England, where, on his arrival, he found his commission ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Crowe, the now forgotten Public Orator of Oxford, and author of Lewesdon Hill, was an intimate friend; a writer on versification; and, last but not least, a very respectable echo of the Miltonic note, as the following, from a passage dealing with the loss in 1786 of the Halsewell East Indiaman off the coast of Dorset, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... the lieutenant thought proper to answer. These were what regarded the nation and name of his vessel, and whither she was bound. On the 9th, our voyagers stood in for Batavia road, where they found the Harcourt Indiaman from England, two English private traders, and a number of Dutch ships. Immediately a boat came on board the Endeavour, and the officer who commanded having inquired who our people were, and whence they came, instantly returned with such answers as were given him. In ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... down early, I saw what I thought was a great big ship without any hull. This was the 'Abergavenny', East Indiaman, which had sunk with all sails set, hardly three miles from the shore, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... from storms, the East River was the harbor proper of New York. Most of the docks were on that side, and just above Catherine street lay the ship-yards, where at times, in colonial days, an eight-hundred-ton West Indiaman might be ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... court of justice, more especially in the Western States, it is no unusual thing to see judge, jury, and the gentlemen of the bar, all chewing and spitting as liberally as the crew of a homeward-bound West Indiaman. It must indeed be confessed that Brother Jonathan loves tobacco 'not wisely but too well,' and that the habits which are induced by his manner of using it are far from 'elegant.' The truth is, he neither smokes nor chews like a gentleman; ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... bright and cool, and the old East Indiaman moved slowly on the heaving bosom of the ocean, under a strong full moon, like a wind-blown ghost to whose wanderings there had been no beginning and could be no end—so small, so helpless she seemed between the two infinities of sea and sky. There ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... doubtful. The retired East Indians, who are to be found in considerable force in most of the continental towns frequented by English, spoke with much scorn of the disreputable old lawyer and indigo-smuggler her father, and of Amory, her first husband, who had been mate of the Indiaman in which Miss Snell came out to join her father at Calcutta. Neither father nor daughter were in society at Calcutta, or had ever been heard of at Government House. Old Sir Jasper Rogers, who had been Chief Justice of Calcutta, had once said to his wife, that ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... impossible to tell how old this Jackson was; for he had no beard, and no wrinkles, except small crowsfeet about the eyes. He might have seen thirty, or perhaps fifty years. But according to his own account, he had been to sea ever since he was eight years old, when he first went as a cabin-boy in an Indiaman, and ran away at Calcutta. And according to his own account, too, he had passed through every kind of dissipation and abandonment in the worst parts of the world. He had served in Portuguese slavers on the coast of Africa; and with a diabolical relish used to tell of the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... MY wedding-trip was to be to England, and the marriage was to take place, and myself and CARO SPOSO to leave Australia before my brother departed for the Ovens diggings. The 'C——,' a fine East Indiaman, then lying in the bay, was bound for London. We were to be on board ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... I was on board of was the Rebecca, a large West Indiaman, trading between London and Barbadoes, to which place she was then bound, so that I should have to return there instead of going home. The captain sent for the mate and me into the cuddy-cabin, to inquire about the vessel ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... Prissy's enraptured eyes sly peeps under the white napkins with which they were covered. And then, hanging a large basket on either arm, she rolled majestically towards the house, like a heavy-laden Indiaman, coming in after ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... leisure hour to read what follows, I pray thee pardon the frequent use of that unwelcome monosyllable I. It could not well be avoided, as will be seen in the sequel. In February 1820 I sailed from the Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, a fine West-Indiaman. She was driven to the north-west of Ireland, and had to contend with a foul and wintry wind for above a fortnight. At last it changed, and we had a pleasant ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... another source of information regarding Drury, in the Gent. Mag. for 1769, where will be found an account of W. Benbow; in this, allusion is made to his brother John Benbow, who was wrecked with Drury in the "Degrave" Indiaman, on Madagascar. W. D., who communicates the information to SYLVANUS URBAN, asserts that he recollects hearing the MS. Journal of this John Benbow read; and that it afforded to his mind a strong confirmation of the truthfulness ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... an English East Indiaman, an officer, who had figured conspicuously in perpetrating severe jokes on those who were, for the first time, introduced to Old Neptune, was shot through the head by an enraged passenger, who could not, or would not appreciate ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... a tame tiger which was brought from China in the Pitt East Indiaman, "who was so far domesticated as to admit of every kind of familiarity from the people on board. He seemed to be quite harmless and as playful as a kitten. He frequently slept with the sailors in their hammocks, and would suffer two or three of them to repose their heads ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Valentine, East Indiaman, went ashore on Brecqhou in the great autumn gale, the year before I was born,—that was before the Le Marchants set themselves down there,—my grandfather was among the first to put out to the rescue of the crew and passengers. He got across to Brecqhou at risk ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... to the middle-aged man at the window: the boat was to carry him down the river to the Albemarle, East Indiaman, anchored in the roads with her Surat cargo aboard. She would sail that night for Bombay and ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of one single pas de deux upon the stage, than you have hitherto done in ten morning calls, with an unexceptionable whisker and the best fitting gloves in Paris. Alas! alas! it is only the rich man that ever wins at rouge et noir. The well-insured Indiaman, with her cargo of millions, comes safe into port; while the whole venture of some hardy veteran of the wave, founders within sight of his native shore. So is it ever; where success would be all and every thing, it never comes —but only be indifferent or regardless, and fortune ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... passage from the Barrier Reefs; he made himself an anchor of heavy wood on the coast, for fear of accident to his sole remaining bower, but fortunately had no occasion to use it. Besides the Lady Nelson, we found lying in Sydney Cove H. M. armed vessel Porpoise, the Bridgewater extra-Indiaman, the ships Cato, Rolla, and Alexander, and brig Nautilus. The Geographe and Naturaliste had not sailed for the South Coast till some months after I left Port Jackson to go to the northward, and so late as the end of ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... in a letter from Havre: "I can't help loving home, though I think a young man ought to be at home in any part of the globe." And at home everywhere Captain Cleveland certainly was. All his life was spent in wandering over the Seven Seas, in ships of every size, from a 25-ton cutter to a 400-ton Indiaman. In those days of navigation laws, blockades, hostile cruisers, hungry privateers, and bloodthirsty pirates, the smaller craft was often the better, for it was wiser to brave nature's moods in a cockle-shell than to attract men's notice in a great ship. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... sea, again, in a very short time. Finding no better berth, and feeling very savage at the blindness of justice, I shipped before the mast, in the Superior, an Indiaman, of quite eight hundred tons, bound to Canton. This was the pleasantest voyage I ever made to sea, in a merchantman, so far as the weather, and, I may say, usage, were concerned. We lost our top-gallant-masts, homeward bound; but this was the only accident that occurred. The ship was ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... government that any help given to Spain would be promptly resented,[226] and Florida Blanca seeing that no reliance was to be placed on France entered into negotiations with England. During their progress a fresh cause of offence was given to England; for in September McDonald, captain of a British West Indiaman, reported that his ship had been stopped by a Spanish frigate in the Gulf of Florida, that he had been forced to go aboard the Spaniard, and had there been cruelly tortured, being set in the bilboes in the blazing sun.[227] For this outrage satisfaction ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... loved Julia Jowler—loved her to madness; but her father intended her for a Member of Council at least, and not for a beggarly Irish ensign. It was, however, my fate to make the passage to India (on board of the "Samuel Snob" East Indiaman, Captain Duffy,) with this lovely creature, and my misfortune instantaneously to fall in love with her. We were not out of the Channel before I adored her, worshipped the deck which she trod upon, kissed a thousand times the cuddy-chair on which she used to sit. The same ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Islands; if an Englishman at all, yonder vessel is a running West-Indiaman; she may take us ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... with his appearance at the palace. Whatever alteration the rough life of a sailor had made on his appearance, the king at once recognized him. All the progress he had made as to worldly prosperity was from being mate of a fisher-boat, under Tattersall, to becoming mate of a West Indiaman, under Captain Grove. His Majesty, who had passed his time more with courtiers than with Quakers, was doubtless astonished that a poor man, having such a claim on his bounty, should have been so many years without seeking his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and others, bound for England in the London Indiaman. We had a pleasant voyage from the cape to St Helena, and thence to England, arriving off the Land's-end towards the close of July. On coming into the British channel we had brisk gales from the west, with thick foggy weather. In the evening of the 30th July we anchored under Dungeness, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... boy worked his passage by trimming the coals in the coal hole. At Liverpool he remained for seven weeks before he could obtain employment, during which time he lived in sheds and fared hardly; until at last he found shelter on board a West Indiaman. He entered as a boy, and before he was nineteen, by steady good conduct he had risen to the command of a ship. At twenty-three he retired from the sea, and settled on shore, after which his progress was rapid "he had prospered," he said, "by steady industry, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... by Mr. John Griffiths near the southern extremity of the west coast of Sumatra, and was given to Captain Cumming of the Britannia indiaman, by whom it was ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East Indiaman, the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... Charles, with all its cards, quadrilles, doubling the cape, crossing the line, and the wearisome routine of sky and sea, the quarter-deck and cabin, we found ourselves at length in Plymouth Sound; left the Indiaman to go up the channel; and I suppose the post-chaise may be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... too, this ship, which had been to us a worse phantom than any flying Dutchman, was no phantom, or ideal thing, but had been reduced to a certainty; so much so that a name was given her, and it was said that she was to be the Alert, a well-known Indiaman, which was expected in Boston in a few months, when we sailed. There could be no doubt, and all looked black enough. Hints were thrown out about three years and four years; the older sailors said they never should see Boston again, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... supposing that a man was to save his soul from perdition simply by getting admitted to the bar. After discussing the matter a little longer, to my astonishment Rupert came out with a plain proposal that he and I should elope, go to New York, and ship as foremastlads in some Indiaman, of which there were then many sailing, at the proper season, from that port. I did not dislike the idea, so far as I was myself concerned; but the thought of accompanying Rupert in such an adventure, startled me. I knew ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... be the weather what it might, I was stationed on deck, generally seated on the highest point of the ship's stern, directly over the rudder, to enjoy a full view of that most graceful and exquisite spectacle, a large vessel's course through the mighty deep. Ours was a splendid one, a West Indiaman, almost rivalling the sea-palaces of the East India Company, and manned in the first style. The troops on board, under the command of a field officer, greatly added to the effect and comfort of the thing, for nothing is so conducive to the latter ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... it was this way," said Trevethick. "It was a stormy night, though not so bad a one as this is like to be, and the life-boat had gone out to a disabled Indiaman. She had been away three hours or more, when, as I was sitting in this very parlor, in came Madge, looking scared enough. She had been to Turlock on an errand for me. So, 'Sit down,' says I, 'and take a glass, for you look as though the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... milk, heaving gently beneath a starlit but moonless sky. A bucket of water, when taken up, was filled with the same half-luminous whiteness, which stuck to its sides when the water was drained off. The captain of the Indiaman was well enough aware of the rarity of the sight to call all the passengers on deck to see what they would never see again; and on asking our captain, he assured us that he had not only never seen, but never heard of the appearance in the West Indies. One curious ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... an hour the two vessels cut through the water before a steady breeze, during which time the fast-sailing schooner gradually overhauled the heavy West-Indiaman, until she approached within speaking distance. Still Captain Ellice paid no attention to her, but stood with compressed lips beside the man at the wheel, gazing alternately at the sails of his ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Harry was convalescent, discussed this vehemently with him. Harry, weak with illness, took it passively. He was destined for the Navy. To him already the sea meant everything: as a child of three, on his voyage home in the Mogul East Indiaman, he had caught the infection of it; on it, as offering the only career fit for a grown man, his young thoughts brooded, and these annoyances were to him but as chimney-pots and pantiles falling about the heads ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Richardson, on the 29th of April 1799, at Fort George, Madras; where she was then living with her uncle, General, afterwards Lord Harris; and the connexion proved, in all respects, a suitable and happy one. Her husband, at that time captain of an Indiaman, was one of a number of brothers, natives of the south of Scotland, who all sought their fortunes in India, and one of whom, Lieutenant-Colonel Richardson, became known in literature as an able translator of Sanscrit poetry, and contributor to the "Asiatic Researches." He was lost ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... hastened to prepare all things, in order to sail for the Arabian coast. Near the river Indus, the man at the mast-head espied a sail, upon which they gave chase; as they came nearer to her, they discovered that she was a tall vessel, and might turn out to be an East Indiaman. She, however, proved a better prize; for when they fired at her she hoisted Mogul colors, and seemed to stand upon her defence. Avery only cannonaded at a distance, when some of his men began to suspect that he was not the hero they had supposed. The sloops, however attacked, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... needs warm weather in which to thrive, the egg-plant requires that both days and nights should be hot. It is an East Indiaman, and demands curry in the way of temperature before it loses its feeble yellow aspect and takes on the dark green of vigorous health. My method is simply this: I purchase strong potted plants between the twentieth of May and the first of June, and set them out ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... names filthily, yet there is not an example of a challenge that ever passed amongst them." His quoting the Eastern nations, put another gentleman in mind of an account he had from a boatswain of an East Indiaman; which was, that a Chinese had tricked and bubbled him, and that when he came to demand satisfaction the next morning, and like a true tar of honour called him "Son of a whore," "Liar," "Dog," and other rough appellatives used by persons conversant with winds and waves; the Chinese, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... It was now impossible to indulge in it, and I was compelled once more to seek for a berth on board ship. Thoughtlessly, I had never studied navigation while I was at sea, and consequently had again to go before the mast. I got on board an Indiaman, and reached Calcutta. On the return voyage we had a number of passengers. I of course knew but little about them, as I seldom went aft except to take my trick at the helm. I observed, however, among them a gentleman ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... confidently laid down, however well it may sound in pious ears while it is expressed in general terms, to be too monstrous, too ludicrous, for grave refutation. Is it seriously meant that, if the Captain of an Indiaman is a Socinian, it would be better for himself, his crew, and his passengers, that he should not know how to use his quadrant and his chronometers? Is it seriously meant that, if a druggist is a Swedenborgian, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fellow, but I do not believe there was any ground for calling him a pirate. I don't suppose he was anything worse than a privateer, which, God knows, is bad enough. I fancy, however, for the most of his sea-life he was captain of an East Indiaman, probably trading on his own account at the same time. That he made money I do not doubt, but very likely he lost it all before he came home, and was too cunning, in view of his ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... England, I strayed across the Alps and the Apennines, and returned home, but could not tarry. Guiana still whispered in my ear, and seemed to invite me once more to wander through her distant forests. In February, 1820, I sailed from the Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, a fine West Indiaman. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... is clear that my conclusion was correct concerning that poor Golconda; and why not also in the other issue? The Indiaman was scuttled—I had never thought of that, but only of a wreck. It comes to the same thing, only she went down more quietly; and that explains a lot of things. She was bound for Leith, with the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... squadrons if they be boldly led and are prepared to risk destruction. Even after Hawke's decisive victory at Quiberon had completed the overthrow of the enemy's sea forces, a British transport was captured between Cork and Portsmouth, and an Indiaman in sight of the Lizard, while Wellington's complaints in the Peninsula of the insecurity of his communications are well known.[9] By general and permanent control we do not mean that the enemy can do nothing, but that he cannot interfere with our maritime trade and oversea operations ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... shattered the galleys of conquering Rome, The galleons of PHILIP that scudded for home (The sea-molluscs slime on their glittering gear); We plundered the plundering French privateer, We caught the great Indiaman head in the wind And gutted her hold of the treasures of Ind; We sank a whole fleet of three-deckers one night (The drift of the sand keeps their culverins bright), And cloudy tea-clippers that raced from Canton Swept into our clutches—and never went on. Come steel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... then considered as the immense sum of fifteen thousand pounds annually. But the population can hardly have exceeded four thousand: the shipping was about fourteen hundred tons, less than the tonnage of a single modern Indiaman of the first class, and the whole number of seamen belonging to the port cannot be estimated at more ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... draughtsman. Next, under his supervision, thin planks of deal are cut to the contours of all these chalk-lines; and these thin pieces, called moulds, are intended to guide the sawyers in cutting the timbers for the ship. A large East Indiaman requires more than a hundred mould-pieces, chalked and marked in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. The annual expense of rockets, and other fireworks, is enormous. Those used in Brazil all come from the East Indies and China. Sometimes, when manufactured goods are unsaleable here, the merchant ships them on board a Portuguese East Indiaman, and gets in return fireworks, which never fail to pay well. I have seen a set of cut-glass sent to Calcutta for the purpose, or a girandole, too ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... I linger under the bridges,—those "caterpillar bridges," as my brother professor so happily called them; rub against the black sides of old wood-schooners; cool down under the overhanging stern of some tall Indiaman; stretch across to the Navy-Yard, where the sentinel warns me off from the Ohio,—just as if I should hurt her by lying in her shadow; then strike out into the harbor, where the water gets clear and the air smells of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... me you climbed the masts, Richard, and worked like a common seaman. Tell me," says she, pointing at the royal yard of a tall East Indiaman, "did you go as high as that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... having broken out there. Just about this time news reached Sydney that the crew of an American sealer lying in Kent's Bay among Cape Barren Islands (Bass's Straits) were building a schooner from the wreck of an East Indiaman named the Sydney Cave—a ship famous in Australian sea story. King despatched an officer to the spot with orders to "command the master to desist from building any vessel whatever, and should he refuse to comply, you will immediately cause the King's mark to be put on some of the timbers, ...
— The Americans In The South Seas - 1901 • Louis Becke

... here the Harcourt Indiaman from England, two English private traders of that country, thirteen sail of large Dutch ships, and a considerable number of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... the speaker, was a lad of some fifteen years of age. His father, who was captain of a fine East Indiaman, had sailed from London when he was nine, and had never returned. No news had been received of the ship after she touched at the Cape, and it was supposed that she had gone down with all hands; until, nearly three years later, her boatswain, Ben Birket, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... above water, and that only at intervals. But when the vast surf which breaks in mountain waves against the weather side of the Farallones with a force which would in a single sweep dash to pieces the biggest Indiaman—when such a surf, vehemently and with apparently irresistible might, lifts its tall white head, and with a deadly roar lashes the rocks half-way to their summit—then it is a magnificent sight to see a dozen or half a hundred great sea-lions at play in the very midst and fiercest ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... window). "In latitude 28 degrees; in a flat calm; off a Dutch East Indiaman. The name I have at home on a bit of paper: you shall have it as warranty with the cask. The captain was drunk, and I traded with the mate. I never miss a chance. The mate said nothing of the woman inside. I believe her to be ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... we were compelled to haul down our colours. A lieutenant was sent on board with forty men to take charge of us, for we were a very rich prize to them. The captain and most of the crew were taken on board of the frigate, but ten Lascars and the boys were left in the Indiaman, to assist in taking her into the Isle of France, which was at that time in the hands of the French. I thought it hard that I was to go to prison at twelve years old; but I did not care much about it, and very soon I was as gay and merry as ever. We had made the ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... first of a series of letters bearing upon the loss of the East Indiaman Earl of Abergavenny, which was wrecked off Portland Bill on February 6, 1805, 200 persons and the captain, John Wordsworth, being lost. The character of Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior" is said to have ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... remains of a West Indiaman, loaded with mahogany and turtles, the latter disappearing in a manner still a marvel at Dungeness, whilst of the former a good deal of salvage money was made. It is not far from this wreck that the Russian last-mentioned came to grief. She met her ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... could see the wreck of a large vessel lying head to the wind. The ribs and frame timbers, marking the outlines of double ports and quarter-galleries, showed that the burning skeleton was that of a first-class Indiaman. Every other external feature was gone; she was burnt nearly to the water's edge, but still floated, pitching majestically as she rose and fell on the long rolling swell of the bay. The vessel looked like an immense cage ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor

... pirates in Madagascar, Burgess was returning home, carrying several pirates as passengers, who were returning to settle in America, having made their fortunes. The ship was captured off the Cape of Good Hope by an East Indiaman, and taken to Madras. Here the captain and passengers were put in irons and sent to England to be tried. The case against Burgess fell through, and he was liberated. Instead of at once getting away, he loitered about London until ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... of the recently captured Spanish frigate, now named the O'Higgins, in honour of the Supreme Director; the San Martin, 56 guns, formerly the Cumberland Indiaman, which had been bought into the service; the Lautaro, 44 guns, also a purchased Indiaman; the Galvarino, 18 guns, recently the British sloop of war Hecate; the Chacabuco, 20 guns; and the Aracauno, 16 guns; a force which, though deficient in organization and equipment, was ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... but I said something about an Indiaman, leaving the London Docks, having to pass Scarborough," she returned demurely. "It was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... you even in trifles. I have been much diverted privately, for it is a secret that not a hundred persons know yet, and is not to be spoken of. Do but think on a duel between Winnington (261) and Augustus Townshend; (262) the latter a pert boy, captain of an Indiaman; the former declared cicisbeo to my Lady Townshend. The quarrel was something that Augustus had said of them; for since she was parted from her husband, she has broke with all his family. Winnington ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the privateers fitted out by private merchants and societies, greatly annoyed the French commerce. The Antigallican, a private ship of war, equipped by a society of men who assumed that name, took the duke de Penthievre Indiaman, off the part of Corunna, and carried her into Cadiz. The prize was estimated worth two hundred thousand pounds, and immediate application was made by France to the court of Spain for restitution, while the proprietors of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Dodd; her periodical visitor her husband, the captain of an East Indiaman; her friends were her son Edward, aged twenty, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... usual salutations they accompanied the master of the ship and went below to the cabin, where some time was spent in bargaining. To make a long story short, they arranged to purchase from the Caroline 25 gallons of rum and some coffee, for which the West Indiaman's skipper was well paid, the average price of rum in that year being about 20s. a gallon. A cask of rum, 3 cwt. of coffee in a barrel and 2 cwt. in a bag were accordingly lowered over the ship's side into the boat and away went the little craft ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... have deserved better success; he was born at Wexford, in Ireland, in the year 1744, and was brought up under his father to the profession of a surgeon: he left Ireland early in life, to pursue his studies in England, and afterwards obtained an appointment as surgeon of an East Indiaman, and remained some years in the service: he married Miss Broadhurst, the youngest daughter of Francis Broadhurst, of Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire, an eminent tanner and maltster; soon after which he commenced his career as owner of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... they observed a boat pulling towards them, and in the course of three hours she arrived on board. The crew were much exhausted from having been two days in the boat, during which time they had never ceased pulling to gain the island. They stated themselves to be the crew of a small Dutch Indiaman, which had foundered at sea two days before; she had started one of her planks, and filled so rapidly that the men had hardly time to save themselves. They consisted of the captain, mates, and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Jones was the first lieutenant, the Columbus, the Andria Doria, and the Cabot, sailed in February, 1776, against Fort Nassau, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas. The only vessel of any force in the squadron was the Alfred, an East Indiaman, which Jones had armed with twenty-four nine-pounders on the gun-deck, and six six-pounders on the quarter-deck. The only officer in the fleet who, with the exception of Jones, ever showed any ability was Nicholas Biddle of the Doria. ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... 1805, the poet's brother, John, lost his life by the shipwreck of the Abergavenny East-Indiaman, of which he was captain. He was a man of great purity and integrity, and sacrificed himself to his sense of duty by refusing to leave the ship till it was impossible to save him. Wordsworth was deeply attached to him, and felt such grief at his death as only solitary natures ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... that grows under the coarse hair of this species of goat, that the fine India shawls are manufactured.[268] This beautiful as well as useful animal was brought over only last June from Bombay, in the Duke of Montrose Indiaman, Captain Dorin. The female, unfortunately, died. It was very obligingly presented by the directors to Sir John Sinclair, the President of the British Wool Society. It is proposed, under Mr Hunter's care, to try some experiment ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... ignorant man knows, and that thing is the only thing worth knowing; it fills the ignorant man's universe. Willems knew all about himself. On the day when, with many misgivings, he ran away from a Dutch East-Indiaman in Samarang roads, he had commenced that study of himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities, of those fate-compelling qualities of his which led him toward that lucrative position which he now filled. Being of a modest and diffident nature, his successes amazed, almost ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... which seafaring men of other days were keenly sensible, and Dana dramatized the meeting of a great, swelling East Indiaman, with a little Atlantic trader, which has hailed her. She shouts back through her captain's trumpet that she is from Calcutta, and laden with silks, spices, and other orient treasures, and in her turn she requires like ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... preference of purely picturesque arrangements, than might have been afforded by the meanest fishing hamlet. But a strong and lasting impression was made upon him by the wreck of the "Dutton" East Indiaman on the rocks under the citadel; the crew were saved by the personal courage and devotion of Sir Edward Pellew, afterwards Lord Exmouth. The wreck held together for many hours under the cliff, rolling to and fro as the surges struck her. Haydon and Prout sat on the crags ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... used to think it was always the same one that wore it, and I thought that might be a way to tell them apart. But then I heard one asking the other for it, and saying that the other had worn it last. So that was no sign either. The cook was a West Indiaman, called James Lawley; his father had been hanged for putting lights in cocoanut trees where they didn't belong. But he was a good cook, and knew his business; and it wasn't soup-and-bully and dog's-body every Sunday. That's what I meant ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... before I was acquainted with him he had been set on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without adding, that he is at this time master of a large West-Indiaman belonging ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... lying in Singapore harbour, and I had one or two runs ashore to have a good look at the town, with its busy port full of all kinds of vessels, from the huge black-sided steamer and trim East Indiaman, to the clumsy high-sterned, mat-sailed, Chinese junk, and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... sand have a fantastic beauty, while one of the largest of them bears a more than fancied resemblance to Queen Elizabeth, and is named after her. Another is known as the Good Samaritan, as against these jagged points an East Indiaman of this name once came to grief, when the local women folk are said to have replenished their wardrobes with a quantity ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath

... beyond what they had been before their late territorial acquisitions. What the gross revenue of those territorial acquisitions was supposed to amount to, has already been mentioned; and by an account brought by the Cruttenden East Indiaman in 1769, the neat revenue, clear of all deductions and military charges, was stated at two millions forty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty-seven pounds. They were said, at the same time, to possess another revenue, arising partly ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... no money, and he'll want to go as far as he can, and where he won't be easily got at. He'll ship on an Indiaman. I'll set a few men to look after the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... to seaward looks different to me every time I float on its noble flood. I have seen it from on board steamers large and small, from an Indiaman's deck, the gunwale of a cutter, and the poop of an ironclad, as well as from rowboat and canoe, and have penetrated almost every nook and cranny on the water, some of them a dozen times, yet always it is new ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... are denizens there? Science is severely silent—having as yet seen no mermaids: our captain there forward is not silent—if he has not seen them, plenty of his friends have. The young man here has been just telling me that it was only last month one followed a West Indiaman right across the Atlantic. "For," says he, "there must be mermaids, and such like. Do you think Heaven would have made all that water there only for the ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... coasting sloop engaged in the dried-apple and kitchen-furniture trade, and he was always hailing every ship that came in sight. He did it just to hear himself talk and to air his small grandeur. One day a majestic Indiaman came plowing by with course on course of canvas towering into the sky, her decks and yards swarming with sailors, her hull burdened to the Plimsoll line with a rich freightage of precious spices, lading the breezes with gracious and mysterious odors of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... time, I consented to go. About two months after leaving the hospital, during which I had passed a very pleasant life, and quite recovered from my wounds and injuries, I sailed for Liverpool in the Sally and Kitty West-Indiaman, commanded by Captain Clarke, a ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... occupying the stern-sheets. The doors of the latter, however, were closed so that no light came through the slanting windows that opened out on either side of the rudder-post, above which is usually fitted what is called the stern gallery on board of an East Indiaman or man-of-war. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... vessels which have been lost here in our own time, the largest was perhaps the Carn-brea Castle East Indiaman, in July 1829: she left Spithead at nine o'clock in the morning, and about six hours afterwards struck on the rocks near Mottistone: the weather being fine, her crew and passengers easily reached the shore. The size of the ship, and the remarkable ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... service proportionate to her force. The third French vessel (c) reached her station, but her captain was struck dead just when about to anchor, and in the confusion the anchor was not let go. The ship drifted foul of a British East Indiaman, which she carried out to sea (c' c"). The two remaining French (d, e) simply cannonaded as they passed across the bay's mouth, failing through mishap or awkwardness to reach an ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... of ocean greyhounds, covering the distance between England and India in a couple of weeks. Nor was there then any Suez Canal route to shorten the long miles that had to be traversed. Thus, when Lola and her spouse embarked from England in an East Indiaman, the voyage took nearly five months to accomplish, with calls at Madeira, St. Helena, and the Cape, before the welcome cry, "Land Ahead!" was heard and anchor was dropped ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... the rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman, during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the Memoirs of Clegg the Clergyman (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely baffled the most dull and determined student on board, and bid fair for an exception to the general rule above-mentioned,—when ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... at Oporto, in 1820; and at Xeres de la Frontera, with his excellent friends, Duff, Gordon and Co., the year after. He travelled to India and back in company with fourteen pipes of Madeira (on board of the Samuel Snob' East Indiaman, Captain Scuttler), and spent the vintage season in the island, with unlimited powers of observation granted to him by the ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... protracted and tedious voyage in a large East Indiaman, he had, with the rest of the crew, been subjected to harsh usage by a stern, capricious captain; but, secure of relief on reaching port, he had borne uncomplainingly with it all. His comrade and quondam ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... obtained. The last to be shipped was W. Penn Sharp as a quartermaster, the only vacancy on board. He had been a skilful detective most of his life, and failing health alone compelled him to go to sea; and he had been a sailor in his early years, attaining the position of first officer of a large Indiaman. ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... hoisted his flag on the Duc de Duras, a condemned East Indiaman, which would have been broken up had he not turned her into a makeshift frigate by mounting forty guns in her batteries—fourteen twelve-pounders, twenty nines and six eighteens. This, in honor of Franklin, he named the Bonhomme Richard. Accompanied by the fine little American-built ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... rise like a curtain; and numbers of ships, that we had had no idea were near, appeared. I don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the Downs. Some of these vessels were of grand size: one was a large Indiaman, just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats putting off from the shore to them, and from them to the shore, and a general life ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... a large ship, full rigged, and the French sailors, who had all come on deck, now clustered against the bulwarks and eagerly discussed her. She was about two miles to windward, and opinions differed as to whether she was a man-of-war or an Indiaman. Ralph rather wondered that the privateer had not tried to get alongside in the darkness and take the vessel by surprise, but he understood now that there was a strong probability that the Belle Marie might have caught a ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... when his last voyage was over, to settle in 'Grasmere's happy vale,' and to devote the surplus of his fortune to his brother's use. On his last voyage he sailed as captain of the 'Earl of Abergavenny' East-Indiaman, at the opening of February 1805; and on the 5th of that month, the ill-fated ship struck on the Shambles of the Bill of Portland, and the captain and most of the crew went down with her. To the ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... number of vessels were lying in the roads, among which were several Americans loading with hemp. There was also a large English East Indiaman, manned by Lascars, whose noise rendered her more like a floating Bedlam than any thing else to ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... landed one hundred pounds, last night, in my purse, as I swam from the Indiaman, which was splitting on a rock, half a league from the neighbouring shore. As for the rest of my property—bills, bonds, cash, jewels—the whole amount of my toil and application, are, by this time, I ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman



Words linked to "Indiaman" :   sailing ship, sailing vessel



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