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Bay of Biscay

noun
1.
An arm of the Atlantic Ocean in western Europe; bordered by the west coast of France and the north coast of Spain.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bay of Biscay" Quotes from Famous Books



... stupendous. The whole Mediterranean world was brought under one government; ancient barriers of religion, speech, and custom were overthrown in every direction; and innumerable barbarian tribes, from the Alps to the wilds of northern Britain, from the Bay of Biscay to the Carpathian mountains, were more or less completely transformed into Roman citizens, protected by Roman law, and sharing in the material and spiritual benefits of Roman civilization. Gradually the whole vast structure became permeated by Hellenic and Jewish ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... board, consigned, it might be supposed, to the Inquisition. They were, of course, Inquisition prisoners; for other offenders would have been dealt with on the spot. Cobham chased her down into the Bay of Biscay, took her, scuttled her, and rescued the captives. But that was not enough. The captain and crew he sewed up in their own mainsail and flung them overboard. They were washed ashore dead, wrapped in their extraordinary winding-sheet. Cobham was called to account for this exploit, but he ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... thousand miles away, Naples and Granada nearly as far; all sought, even in summer, though quivering in the tropics' livid heat. We came round to our Pyrenees: it needs from Paris but nine hours to Bordeaux, with coigns of vantage between; in four hours from Bordeaux, you are by the waters of the Bay of Biscay, or in six, in the centre of the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... Spain who, with an armada to press his suit, endeavored to marry a queen of England. Both the suit and the armada were left in the bay of Biscay, and the queen an old maid. Ambition: To the Inquisition with all Englishmen. Motto: Faint heart never won fair lady. ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... week the two fleets cruised about in the Bay of Biscay, each taking many prizes, but without meeting. At last, early on the morning of the 28th of May, they came in sight of each other. The French were to windward, and, having a strong south west wind with them, they came down rapidly towards us, as if anxious to ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... the Bay of Biscay and English Channel, between Belgium and Spain, southeast of the UK; bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... a peculiar mode of harnessing their oxen, similar to that seen in the far East and also in some parts of Europe, as at San Sebastian, on the Bay of Biscay. A stout wooden bar is placed at the root of the horns, and so securely bound to them with thongs that the animal draws, or rather pushes, by the head and frontlet, without chafing. The Cuban oxen have a hole pierced in their nostrils, through which a metallic ring is secured, and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... Greenwich. This was very near the centre of the northern Atlantic, and gave us ample time to get our ship in good condition before we drew in with the land. Shortly after the affair, the wind came out light at northeast, forcing us down nearer to the Bay of Biscay than was at all convenient, when bound to London. The weather grew foggy, too, which is not usual on the coast of Europe, with the wind at east, and the nights dark. Just a fortnight after the action, I was awakened early one morning by a rough shake of the shoulder from ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... comedian ——, Mrs., the actress Bartolini, the sculptor, his bust of Lord Byron Bartorini, princess, her monument at Bologna Bath, Lord Byron at 'Bath Guide,' Anstey's Baths of Penelope, Lord Byron's visit to 'Baviad and Maeviad,' extinguishment of the Delia Cruscans by the Bay of Biscay Bayes, Mr., caricature of Dryden Beattie, Dr., his 'Minstrel' Beaumarchais, his singular good fortune Beaumont, Sir George Beauvais, Bishop of Beccaria, anecdote of Becher, Rev. John, Lord Byron's friend His epilogue to the 'Wheel of Fortune' His influence over Lord Byron Letters ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Mediterranean; but as we proposed to examine into the different situations of the lesser divisions of water, first, we will merely sail through a portion of the Atlantic, and have a little information concerning the Bay of Biscay." ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... OF FRANCE, Jan. 1655-56:[1]—His Highness has been informed of very extraordinary conduct on the part of the French Governor of Belleisle in the Bay of Biscay. On the 10th of December last, or thereabouts, he not only admitted into his port one Dillon, a piratic enemy of the English Commonwealth, and assisted him with supplies, but also prevented the recapture of a merchant ship from ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... and it may seem rather stale eggs to be in no fluster at all about anything. And yet, dear little reader, once you consider it quietly, it's so much nicer not to be in a fluster. It's so much nicer not to feel one's deeper innards storming like the Bay of Biscay. It is so much better to get up and say to the waters of one's own troubled spirit: Peace, be still ...! And they will ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... Channel at full speed and at night were abreast of the Scilly lights, driving towards the Bay of Biscay in the teeth of an Equinoctial gale. At the behest of one girl eighty men had to endure the discomfort of a storm at sea, and a great steel ship, straining and quivering, was flung into the perilous night. It seemed a misuse of power that, at a woman's ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... arising, Sunday morning, September 3rd, that we were in the Bay of Biscay and two cruisers were circling around and gradually escorting us into the port of Bordeaux. We were told subsequently that the wireless apparatus has been disconnected and we had been ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... compressed air and of food for the crew, was confirmed on the 14th of May, 1915, when it was reported that agents of the British admiralty had discovered caches of the kind at various points in the Orkney Islands, in the Bay of Biscay, and on the north ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... could not take place without ample notice, and that we should have time to raise and discipline a great force. An absolute prince, whose orders, given in profound secresy, were promptly obeyed at once by his captains on the Rhine and on the Scheld, and by his admirals in the Bay of Biscay and in the Mediterranean, might be ready to strike a blow long before we were prepared to parry it. We might be appalled by learning that ships from widely remote parts, and troops from widely remote garrisons, had assembled ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... father—a friend of Oberg's—and in response to their invitation went for a cruise on their yacht, the Iris, from Southampton. Our party was a very pleasant one, and included Woodroffe and Chater, while our cruise across the Bay of Biscay and along the Portuguese coast proved most delightful. One night, while we were lying outside Lisbon, Woodroffe and Chater, together with Olinto, went ashore, and when they returned in the early hours of the morning they ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... London, had been caught at the outset of her passage across the Atlantic by what her American skipper termed "a pretty considerable gale of wind;" and she now lay tossing about amid the broken waves of the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on the morning after the tempest, the full force of which she had fortunately escaped, trying to make some headway under her jib, close-reefed topsails, and storm staysails, with a bit of her mainsail set to steady her, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... made up their minds to be sailors long before they were out of the Thames, and although they changed their minds when they got a terrific tossing in the Bay of Biscay, their bearing was strictly ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... Emerson's second visit to England, during which he saw Stonehenge, was made in 1847. Of all the Druidical remains in Europe, Stonehenge is perhaps the most remarkable, altho at Carnac in Brittany on the northern shore of the Bay of Biscay, are Druidical remains more numerous, but in general they are smaller and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... life in Hatton had broken apart, and Harry was speeding down the Bay of Biscay and singing the fine old sea song called after it, to the rhythm and music of its billowy surge. The motion of the boat, the wind in the sails, the "chanties" of the sailors as they went about their work, and the evident content and happiness ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Sussex died of dysentery, the engines broke down, and we had no buns. At St. Vincent we stopped two-and-a-half days to coal, and flew the yellow flag at the fore, being in quarantine on account of the Bubonic outbreak at Cape Town. In the Bay of Biscay a Yeoman comrade died of enteric, and was buried two days from home. Friday, the 18th, on a lovely spring morning, the sea being as smooth as glass, we sighted the cliffs of ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... famous watering-place, situated on the boisterous Bay of Biscay, and drawing its patronage largely from Madrid, though of late many English people have resorted thither. It is a small city, but the thriftiest and most business-like, when its size is considered, to be found in the borders of Spain. The place was entirely destroyed by fire when captured from ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... 10th of August the Northumberland cleared the Channel, and lost sight of land. The course of the ship was shaped to cross the Bay of Biscay and double Cape Finisterre. The wind was fair, though light, and the heat excessive. Napoleon breakfasted in his own cabin at irregular hours. He sent for one of his attendants every morning to know the distance run, the state of the wind, and other particulars ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... my thoughts, my old pilot, to whom I communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go by sea, but either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the Bay of Biscay to Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and safe journey by land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to go up to Madrid, and so all the way by land through France. In a word, I was so prepossessed ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... the sea and so slight the motion that Jack could hardly believe that he was sailing down through the Bay of Biscay, of which he had heard so much; and he was quite surprised when, on the fifth day after sailing, Mr. Hoare pointed to land on the port bow, and ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... Basques" lies to the south of the town, bordered with high cliffs, which in turn are surmounted with terraces of villas. The charm of it all is incomparable. To the northwest stretches the limpid horizon of the Bay of Biscay, and to the south the snowy summits of the Pyrenees, and the adorable bays of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Fontarabie, while behind, and to the eastward, lies the quaint country of the Basques, and the mountain trails into Spain in all their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... from Cowes, and in the afternoon passed the Needles. From this day to the fourteenth being in the Bay of Biscay, the sea was very rough. Mr. Delamotte and others were more sick than ever; Mr. Ingham a little; I not at all. But the fourteenth being a calm day, most of the sick ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... and in consequence exposing a portion of his person, as ridiculously, and perhaps as unconsciously, as a turkey-cock does when he intends to make himself very agreeable. He was walking rather fancifully up and down the room, partly singing, partly whistling 'The Bay of Biscay O,' and at the long-lived, but most nonsensical chorus, he shook the fag-ends of his divided coat tail, as if in derision of that fatal 'short sea,' so well known and despised in that salt-water burial-place. I was pretending to read a paper, when a carrier ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... the promise of the man who had written the book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the Bay of Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set down the author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind to quarrel with him for leading us into this cruel error. The most provoking part of the matter, too, was, that the sky was deliciously clear and cloudless, the air balmy, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... he once again returned to his seat, and remained for a long time reflecting upon incidents that had transpired twenty years before in the Bay of Biscay. ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... America, with a cloudless sky; whereas, during the spring months in particular, there is no security against rain an hour at a time, near the western coast of Europe, more especially north of the Bay of Biscay. On the present occasion, we passed in a few minutes from the oven to the ice-house, and were travelling with cloaks about us, and closed windows, long before we reached Aix-la-Chapelle, at which ancient town we arrived about six. Unlike Spa, where we had the choice among a hundred ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of the contrivances known as "accumulators," to diminish the risk of snapping the dredge rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22nd of July, 1869, H.M.S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented feat of dredging in 2,435 fathoms, or 14,610 feet, a depth nearly equal to the height of Mont Blanc. The dredge "was rapidly hauled on deck at one o'clock in the morning of the 23rd, after an absence of 7-1/4 hours, and a journey of ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... bad. There are a lot around England and Scotland, like Eddystone, Wolf Rock, the Long Ships, and Bell Rock—that's the old 'Inchcape Rock' you read about in school—and there was a particularly bad one called Or-Mar, in the Bay of Biscay. It took the engineer one year and a week before he could make ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... in darkness, cold and wet, in a lightly ballasted ship that rolled and pitched and swayed. And all the time the sands in the hour-glass of my uncle's fortunes were streaming out. Misery! Amidst it all I remember only one thing brightly, one morning of sunshine in the Bay of Biscay and a vision of frothing waves, sapphire green, a bird following our wake and our masts rolling about the sky. Then wind and rain close in ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... the Arabic race and its subject allies upon the western limits of the world, and in two ways they helped to fix this belief, derived from the timid coasting-traders of the Roman Empire on Greek and Latin Christendom. First, the Spanish Caliphate cut off all access to the Western Sea beyond the Bay of Biscay, from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. Not till the capture of Lisbon in 1147, could Christian enterprise on this side gain any basis, or starting-point. Not till the conquest of the Algarve ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... the laurel-crown he wears as first English Tenor of his age, he would long ago have set up a most dangerous opposition to that sweet singer, and have ridden off victoriously with "My Pretty Jane" seated up behind him, pillion-wise, on the noble steed known as "The Bay of Biscay O!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various

... an old weather-beaten set, culled from the most experienced seamen on board. These are the fellows that sing you "The Bay of Biscay Oh!" and "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Torn Bowling!" "Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!" who, when ashore, at an eating-house, call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. These are the fellows who ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... heart of the Canadian wilderness. On board of one of them was the Breton merchant, Pontgrave, and with him a man of spirit widely different, a Catholic of good family,—Samuel de Champlain, born in 1567 at the small seaport of Bronage on the Bay of Biscay. His father was a captain in the royal navy, where he himself seems also to have served, though during the war he had fought for the King in Brittany, under the banners of D'Aumont, St. Luc, and Brissac. His purse was small, his merit great; and ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... for England was at war with France in those days. So for five weary weeks The Duff anchored in the roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels, she could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected by British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, The Duff held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... a gale (favourable, indeed, but more furious than the captain had ever known in these seas),—about lat. 34 degrees S. and long. 25 degrees. For three days we ran under close-reefed (four reefs) topsails, before a sea. The gale in the Bay of Biscay was a little shaking up in a puddle (a dirty one) compared to that glorious South Atlantic in all its majestic fury. The intense blue waves, crowned with fantastic crests of bright emeralds and with the spray blowing about like wild dishevelled hair, came after us to swallow us up at a mouthful, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... attend him everywhere, as the powers of earth and air on Prospero. Here comes the King of the Vipers, the dry stubble crackling beneath his outrageous belly; yonder the foredoomed sailor promptly fulfills his own prediction, falling from the yard-arm into the Bay of Biscay; anon the ghastly visage of Mrs. Herne, of the Hairy Ones, glares for a moment out of the midnight hedge; again, a mysterious infatuation drives the wealthy idler from his bed out into the inclement darkness, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... multitudes to be tempted by them. The North has been fitly called the storehouse of nations. Along the breadth of Asia, and thence to Europe, from the Chinese Sea on the East, to the Euxine on the West, nay to the Rhine, nay even to the Bay of Biscay, running between and beyond the 40th and 50th degrees of latitude, and above the fruitful South, stretches a vast plain, which has been from time immemorial what may be called the wild common and place of encampment, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... literature. Yet what does the average Englishman to-day remember of the great sailor who, through the bitter November gales of 1759, kept dogged and tireless watch over the French fleet in Brest, destroyed that fleet with heroic daring amongst the sands of Quiberon, while the fury of a Bay of Biscay tempest almost drowned the roar of his guns, and so crushed a threatened ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... the captain took an observation, by which it appeared that Ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just entering the bay of Biscay. We had advanced a very few miles in this bay before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed with the loss of a fine piece of ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... confusion, drunkenness, and insubordination which our crew exhibited,—the recollection is too bad already, and I would spare you and myself the recital; but on the fourth day from the setting in of the gale, as we entered the Bay of Biscay, some one aloft descried a strange sail to windward bearing down as if in pursuit of us. Scarcely did the news reach the deck when, bad as it was before, matters became now ten times worse, some resolving to give themselves up if the chase happened to be French, and vowing that before surrendering ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... three weeks in sailing from Lisbon to the neighbourhood of Cape Finisterre. Here they were overtaken by a tempest, and were scattered hither and thither, almost at the mercy of the winds and waves; for those unwieldy hulks were ill adapted to a tempest in the Bay of Biscay. There were those in the Armada, however, to whom the storm was a blessing. David Gwynn, a Welsh mariner, had sat in the Spanish hulks a wretched galley-slave—as prisoner of war for more than eleven years, hoping, year after year, for a chance of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... torn, and half consumed. Several peculiarly developed paper dolls, branded here and there with large letters, like galley-slaves, were then produced by the accused, and the judge could with difficulty preserve her gravity when she found "John Gilpin" converted into a painted petticoat, "The Bay of Biscay, O," situated in the crown of a hat, and "Chevy Chase" issuing from the mouth of a triangular gentleman, who, like Dickens's cherub, probably sung it by ear, having ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... most anxious to be off. In a few minutes the Rebiera was under way with all sail set below and aloft. She was in excellent trim and flew through the water; the wind was fair, and by night they had passed Portland Lights, and the next morning were steering a course for the Bay of Biscay without having encountered what they feared more than an enemy,—a British ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... for them in the Mediterranean by the same able officer; the pursuit in the West Indies; their evasion of him among the islands; the return to Europe; his vain efforts subsequently, along the coast of Portugal, in the bay of Biscay, and off the English channel; and the meeting at last at Trafalgar, brought about only because the combined fleets, trusting to the superiority that the accession of several reinforcements had given, were willing to try the issue of a battle—these ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... legitimate part of his campaign. After touring the Eastern Townships he made a thorough visitation of the western province, going round by water, and {53} being nearly wrecked on Lake Erie and again on Lake Huron, where he found that the inland freshwater sea could be as turbulent as the Bay of Biscay. Elsewhere the Canadian autumn weather was delightful. His precarious health improved. His tour was a triumphal progress. 'All parties,' he writes, 'uniting in addresses in every place, full of confidence in my government, and of a determination to forget their former disputes.' He adds ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... into the Bay of Biscay the weather was worse than ever. Giles was pleased, as Calthorpe told him that there was the better chance of catching The Dark Horse before she reached her port of destination. Once on Spanish soil and Giles feared lest ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... as we have remarked, all relate to the sea—he is a complete repository of Dibdin's choice old ballads and fok'sl chaunts. "Tom Bowling," "Lovely Nan," "Poor Jack," and "Lash'd to the helm," with "Cease, rude Boreas," and "Rule Britannia," are amongst his favourite pieces, but the "Bay of Biscay" is his crack performance: with this he always commenced, when he wanted to enlist the sympathies of his auditors,—mingling with the song ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... constructed on the western third of a vast mountain axis, which reaches in a broken and irregular course from the Sea of Japan to the Bay of Biscay. On the flanks of this range, peninsular slopes are directed toward the south, and extensive plateaus to the north. The culminating point in Europe is Mont Blanc, 16,000 feet above the level of the sea. The axis of elevation is not the axis of figure; ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... theatre. Hence, also, the sudden and violent changes of fortune, by which the hero and his antagonists are agitated through the whole piece. Fortune has been often compared to the sea; but in a heroic play, her course resembled an absolute Bay of Biscay, or Race of Portland, disturbed by an hundred contending currents and eddies, and never continuing a moment in one ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... side of the Adour rises the citadel, a fortified angular structure standing detached. A large and brilliant tricolor flag is waving indolently from a staff on the summit. The Bay of Biscay, into which the Adour flows, is seen on the left horizon as ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... futile, light-headed, inconsequent thinking upon all things under heaven in that dark, dank, wet and devastated cabin, I arose suddenly and staggered up on deck. The autocrat of the North Atlantic was still oppressing his kingdom and its outlying dependencies, even as far as the Bay of Biscay, in the dismal secrecy of thick, very thick, weather. The force of the wind, though we were running before it at the rate of some ten knots an hour, was so great that it drove me with a steady push to the front of the poop, where my commander was ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... the northeast carried the fleet rapidly across the Bay of Biscay, and it proceeded on its way, keeping well out of sight of the coast of Portugal. The three fastest sailers of the fleet were sent on ahead as soon as they rounded Cape St. Vincent, with orders to capture all small vessels which might carry ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... the Bay of Biscay a boy is born whose spirit, nourished of the tales of the new world, is to make a permanent colony where Cartier had found and left a wilderness, and is to write his name foremost on the "bright roll of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... which, between Waterford and Cape Clear, she remained for four days. After this she passed round the west coast, and to the northward as far as Shetland and the Faroe Islands. She then retraced her course, crossed the Bay of Biscay, and ran along the Portuguese coast; pursuing in general outline the same path as that in which the "Wasp" very soon afterwards followed. Fourteen prizes were taken; of which twelve were destroyed, and two utilized as cartels to carry prisoners to England. Of the whole number, one only ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... that nobleman. He was sent young to sea, as an apprentice to the master of a small bark, who traded with France and Zealand; and his master, a bachelor, taking a great affection for him, left him his bark at his death. At eighteen years of age, he was purser of a ship on a voyage to the Bay of Biscay, and at twenty made a voyage to the coast of Guinea. In all these voyages he distinguished himself by extraordinary courage, and by a sagacity beyond his years. In 1565, his laudable desire of glory induced him to venture his all in a voyage to the West Indies, which had no success. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... enterprising Sir John failed to acquire renown, in consequence of mere accidents. On the breaking out of the Spanish war, he was ordered to cruise in the Bay of Biscay; but, owing to tempestuous weather, was compelled to put into port for the winter. The following lines were addressed to him upon ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... island has been fretted by the waves into detached tower-like masses of rock of very remarkable appearance. In the Channel the sea was green, and opposite Ushant it was a brighter green. On Wednesday evening we committed ourselves to the Bay of Biscay. The roll of the Atlantic was full, but not violent. There had been scarcely a gleam of sunshine throughout the day, but the cloud-forms were fine, and their apparent solidity impressive. On Thursday morning the green of the sea was displaced ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... highest faculties called earliest into use, and kept most constantly in exercise. Let no man, therefore, think of the navy as a last resource for the stupidest of his sons. He will chew salt-junk, and walk with an easy negligence acquired from a course of practice in the Bay of Biscay; and in due time arrive at his double epaulettes, and be a blockhead to the end of the chapter. But all this stupidity, we humbly conceive, might have found as fitting an arena in Westminster Hall, or even in Westminster Abbey—with reverence be it spoken—as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... 'Pyrenees.' A mountain range which separates France from Spain, and extends from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean. The highest points are about 11,000 feet. A visit to the Eastern Pyrenees from the Spanish side is much more difficult than from France, as both traveling and hotel accommodations are ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

... whaler, from Biarritz or St. Jean de Luz, wandered into these seas in search of fish, when, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, he and his fellows had killed out all the Right Whales of the Bay of Biscay? And had he, missing the Bocas, been wrecked and perished, as he may well have done, against those awful walls? At last we turned to re-ascend—for the tide was rising—after our leader had congratulated us on being, perhaps, the only white men who had ever seen Ance Biscayen—a congratulation ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... was seen for the first time in European waters, when a little squadron of three ships set sail from Nantes in France, and after cruising on the Bay of Biscay went twice around Ireland and came back to France with fifteen prizes. As France had not then acknowledged our independence, they were ordered to depart. Two did so; but one of them, the Lexington, was captured by the British, and the other, the Reprisal, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... light of optics, and sees through dioptrics, He's a dab at projectiles—ne'er misses his man; He's complete in attraction, and quick at reaction, By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan; In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay, If it flowed but with whiskey, he'd store it away. Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, There's nothing in life that ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... presence of a dangerous shoal, known by the most appropriate and significant name of "The Shambles." Inside this lay a long and turbid ridge of angry water, where the Race of Portland ran, and where a deep rolling swell, like the Bay of Biscay on a reduced scale, kept tumbling and breaking into spray like drifts of snow against the high, gaunt cliffs. It, however, required no actual watching of the low green mounds of water, which seemed butting against the coast, to convince ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... beauty, and there is no animal of its size which conveys a higher idea of intelligence and dignity, than the so-called Newfoundland dog. All are semi-palmate, and dive, swim, and keep longer in the water than any others of their tribe. One was picked up in the Bay of Biscay, out of sight of any other vessel, fatigued and hungry, and which, judging from the circumstances, must have been there for many hours. Their fidelity, their courage, their generosity, are proverbial, and yet it is whispered that they are occasionally capricious and not to be trusted. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... have picked up a memory at every mile if the past had not been eclipsed by the tremendous actuality. We saw the signs of it in the emptiness of the Mediterranean, the aspect of Gibraltar, the misty glimpse in the Bay of Biscay of an outward-bound convoy of transports, in the presence of British submarines in the Channel. Innumerable drifters flying the Naval flag dotted the narrow waters, and two Naval officers coming on board off the South Foreland, piloted the ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... to most concerning nature, there are exceptions. Mediterranean fishes slip out of the Straits of Gibraltar, and up the coast of Portugal, and, once in the Bay of Biscay, find the feeding good and the wind ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition such as Europe had never seen. Nothing would content her but that the whole civilised world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... head of the Bay of Biscay the quantity of these marching sands is so great that at one time they jeopardized the agriculture of a large district. The French Government has now succeeded, by carefully planting the surface ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... visit one of the prettiest watering-places of "la belle France," the Baie d'Arcachon? If so, he will probably have passed through the district of the Landes, and will have had an opportunity of observing the formation of "dunes" on a grand scale. What are these "dunes"? The winds and waves of the Bay of Biscay have not much consciousness, and yet they have with great care "selected," from among an infinity of masses of silex of all shapes and sizes, which have been submitted to their action, all the grains of sand below a certain size, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... for instance, captured the Spanish ship in the Bay of Biscay, after all resistance was over and the heat of the battle had cooled, he ordered his crew to bind the captain and all of the crew and every Spaniard aboard—whether in arms or not—to sew them up in the mainsail and to fling them overboard. There were ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... in these same weeks, far in the Western waters: breasting through the Bay of Biscay, a greasy dingy little Merchantship, with Scotch skipper; under hatches whereof sit, disconsolate,—the last forlorn nucleus of Girondism, the Deputies from Quimper! Several have dissipated themselves, whithersoever they could. Poor Riouffe fell into the talons of Revolutionary Committee, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... enemy airman had done murder in Finistere was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... he exhibited his easy mastery of the art of navigation and his extraordinary gift for estimating dead-reckoning. After having been out of sight of land for eight weeks, and while some of the sailors thought they might be in the Bay of Biscay, and others that they were in the English Channel, the Admiral suddenly announced that they were close ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... carried the sections of the "Ma-Robert," the steam launch with Mrs. Livingstone's African name, which was to be permanently used in the exploration of the Zambesi and its tributaries. At starting, the "Pearl" had fine weather and a favorable wind, and quickly ran down the Channel and across the Bay of Biscay. With that business-like precision which characterized him, Livingstone, as soon as sea-sickness was over, had the instructions of the Foreign Office read in presence of all the members of the Expedition, and he afterward wrote out and delivered to each person a specific statement ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... not issued till 1703, the second year of the war, in which Rooke did nothing but carry out a barren cruise in the Bay of Biscay, we may assume that the Cadiz expedition of 1702 proceeded under Russell's old instructions of the previous war. It was under Rooke's new instructions, however, that the battle of Malaga was fought in 1704. They were certainly in force in 1705, for a copy of them exists ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... we again started, and made for the Bay of Biscay. The sea was high and the wind strong and contrary; nevertheless, on the morning of the fourth day, we were in sight of the rocky coast to the north of Cape Finisterre. I must here observe, that this was ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... the North Sea fleet, and in the latter year was made captain. Unemployed for the next four years, he commanded in 1805 a frigate in the English and Irish Channels. In 1806 he was appointed to the command of the "Shannon", 38-gun frigate, remaining afloat, principally in the Bay of Biscay, till 1811. The "Shannon" was then ordered to Halifax, Nova Scotia. For a year after the declaration of war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, the frigate saw no important service, though she captured several ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... Thanks!—'in the Bay of Biscay.' You see it WAS rough after Gib. 'Everybody was'—yes. 'The captain read Church of England prayers on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to join, and we had mangoes every day for ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... take us long getting ready. Pickets were put out on the quay and various fatigue parties manned the horses. My big mare was pretty lame but my other horse was in good shape. We had escaped the perils of the Bay of Biscay and were now in Western France. Towards evening I asked the transport officer what time we would take the train, as we had been told we were to go up country. He said that as soon as we had unloaded ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... desirable that, though winds and storms are, as I have said, rare, these long and narrow seas with their lofty shores are exposed to rough currents, atmospheric and marine, which render a voyage on the surface no more agreeable than a passage in average weather across the Bay of Biscay. After descending I was occupied for some time in studying, with Ergimo's assistance, the arrangement of the machinery, and the simple process by which electric force is generated in quantities adequate to any effort at a marvellously ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... still perfectly calm; and when, toward evening, the children were told that they were now fairly getting into the Bay of Biscay, they could scarcely ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... greatest crop of seamen on the seas. Merchantmen were stopped at sea, robbed of their able sailors, and left to limp short-handed into port. A British East Indiaman homeward bound in 1802 was stripped of so many of her crew in the Bay of Biscay that she was unable to offer resistance to a French privateer and fell a rich victim into the hands of the enemy. The necessity of the royal navy knew no law and often defeated its ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... we now know as France is the tract of land shut in by the British Channel, the Bay of Biscay, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, and the Alps. But this country only gained the name of France by degrees. In the earliest days of which we have any account, it was peopled by the Celts, and it was known ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bothered their heads very little about taxation without representation but whetted their anger with grudges more robust. They had been beggared and bullied and shot at from the Bay of Biscay to Barbados, and no sooner was the Continental Congress ready to issue privateering commissions and letters of marque than for them it was up anchor and away to bag a Britisher. Scarcely had a shipmaster signaled his arrival with a deep freight of logwood, molasses, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... the task of dying. There is an amazing normality about him. You find him in towns, ancient with chateaux and wonderful with age; he is absolutely himself, keenly efficient and irreverently modern. Everywhere, from the Bay of Biscay to the Swiss border, from the Mediterranean to the English Channel, you see the lean figure and the slouch hat of the U.S.A. soldier. He is invariably well-conducted, almost always alone and usually gravely ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... Alerts away!'' Battle-songs, drinking-songs, boat-songs, love-songs, and everything else, they seemed to have a complete assortment of, and I was glad to find that "All in the Downs,'' "Poor Tom Bowline,'' "The Bay of Biscay,'' "List, ye Landsmen!'' and other classical songs of the sea, still held their places. In addition to these, they had picked up at the theatres and other places a few songs of a little more genteel cast, which they were very proud of; and I shall never forget hearing ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... and set the purser to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of the ship's company, the casks and casks full of blue water as would come powering in over the gunnel! The dirtiest night, your honour, as ever you see 'atween Spithead at gun-fire and the Bay of Biscay! The wind sou'-west, and your house dead in the wind's eye; the breakers running up high upon the rocky beads, the light'us no more looking through the fog than Davy Jones's sarser eye through the blue sky of heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights of your honour's ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... "Naughty Lass" with hibernian unconsciousness of his own humour. I wonder, now, why it is that we sailor-men invariably display such frantic feminine interest when another craft heaves in sight. The most contemptible fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, when she appears on the horizon, receives the notice of all hands—the old as well as the young. And when we pass a sister ship, the Aretino or the Cosimo or the Angelo; in mid-ocean, we talk about her and criticise her, and rake out her past history, for days. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... started carried us handsomely down channel and half-way across the Bay of Biscay, and the ship proving to be a regular flyer, everybody, from the skipper downwards, was in the very best of spirits. Then came a change, the wind backing out from south-west with squally weather which placed ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... world. The strong wind blows endlessly and the great grey waves are always rolling on monotonously one after another, one after another, in huge hillocks. So we plough down the English Channel and across the Bay of Biscay, which is no rougher than anywhere else, though people ask with bated breath, "When shall we be in the Bay?" "Are we through the Bay yet?" as if there was no other bay in ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... right under the eyes of the British naval headquarters, from which they were themselves expecting an attack. So they tried one from the Mediterranean. But Osborne and Saunders shut the door in their faces at Gibraltar and broke up their Toulon fleet as well. Then the French tried the Bay of Biscay. But Hawke swooped down on the big convoy of supply vessels sheltering at Aix and forced both them and their escorting men-of-war to run aground in order to save themselves from being burnt. Meanwhile large numbers of French farmers and fishermen had to be kept under ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... especially the long struggle with Napoleon that led to an outburst of naval poetry. It is to the national feelings current during this period that we owe such songs as "The Bay of Biscay, O," by Andrew Cherry; "Hearts of Oak," by David Garrick[110]; "The Saucy Arethusa," by Prince Hoare; "A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea," by Allan Cunningham; "Ye Mariners of England," by Thomas Campbell, and a host of others. Amongst ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... through "an unruly tumult with swords in their hands." On the Isles of Scilly she was put ashore more dead than alive, and plundered of all her possessions by the sailors. At Portsmouth she and her husband were fired upon by Dutch men-of-war, and another time they were shipwrecked in the Bay of Biscay. Yet her buoyant temperament was never crushed. She might have said with Shakespeare's Beatrice, "A star danced when I was born," so infinite was her capacity for keeping on ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... carefully engineered, faced with sloping layers of hewn stone. His own men scolded at the magnitude of the work,—the men in La Rochelle laughed at it. Worse than that, the Ocean sometimes laughed and scolded at it. Sometimes the waves sweeping in from that fierce Bay of Biscay destroyed in an hour the work of a week. The carelessness of a subordinate once destroyed in a moment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... safely in Durban and booked his passage to England. But the enforced idleness on the voyage preyed on his mind; the strange surroundings irked him; he took to drink badly. One day, when in the Bay of Biscay, he rushed on deck carrying his leather bag of gold. After flinging this into the sea he leaped over-board. Dempster was fished out; the gold, of course, went to ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... death alone should hold him back from her. His thoughts were still in the woods of Minstead and the old armory of Twynham Castle, when the hoarse voice of the master-shipman brought them back once more to the Bay of Biscay. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... it pleased God to send us a fair wind at N.E. on the 9th March, when we departed from that road, and set sail for the East Indies. The wind continued favourable till the 16th, at night, when we were in the bay of Biscay, at which time we were assailed by a most fearful storm, during which we lost sight both of the Globe and the Rose. The Globe rejoined us on the 26th following, but the Rose was no more heard of till six months afterwards, when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... who would have thought of seeing you again so soon? You are brave to cross the bay so often" (her thoughts ran a great deal on the Bay of Biscay); "but I don't think you look quite well, you have such black lines under your eyes, and, I declare, there's ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... passengers, including Noyrot and a lay brother, Louis Malot, were drowned. Lalemant escaped with his life, and took passage on a trading vessel for France. This ship, too, was wrecked, near San Sebastian in the Bay of Biscay, and again Lalemant narrowly ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... voyage was quick and prosperous, and unmarked by incident save their pursuit by a great Spanish fleet which they encountered in the Bay of Biscay. This danger was escaped by their superior speed and seamanship, and at length Rene de Veaux saw the spires and roofs of that same seaport from which he had sailed for the New World, in company with his Uncle Laudonniere, nearly four ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... river in France, 630 m., rises in the Cevennes, flows northwards to Orleans and westward to the Bay of Biscay, through a very fertile valley which it often inundates. It is navigable for 550 m., but its lower waters are obstructed by islands and shoals; it is connected by canals with the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Knight'—very well received; recitative and aria, from Lucia di Lammermoor—very lachrymose; violin solo, by Signor Rosinini, who throws the audience into a paroxysm of delight by imitating a saw and a grindstone; 'The Bay of Biscay,' by the 'veteran' Braham, being positively his last appearance (the 'veteran' is announced for four concerts in the ensuing week!); ballad, again, by the native tenor, 'When Vows are torn by slumbering Hearts'—more great applause; the page's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... their destination, a dreary island beaten by the raging waves of the Bay of Biscay. The prisoners were confined in the castle; each had a single chamber, at the door of which a guard was placed; and each was allowed the ration of a single soldier. They were not allowed to communicate either with the garrison or with the population of the island; and soon after their arrival ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... long, straight ridge of the Pyrenees, stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, and dividing the land of France from that of Spain, there extend numerous side-hills, like buttresses to the main mountain mass, running far into the plains on either side. Between these rugged buttresses lie narrow valleys, now ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... the English contingent to their destination. They were ships belonging to the maritime nations of Italy—the Venetians, Genoese, Pisans, etc.; for England at that time had but few of her own, and these scarcely fitted for the stormy navigation of the Bay of Biscay. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... you speak so kindly of the members of your guardian's family. I have never yet seen that person who had not some redeeming trait. Many years ago, I knew Louise Neville very well. She was then the handsome happy bride of a young naval officer, who was soon after drowned in the Bay of Biscay; before the birth of their only child, Olga. At first Louise seemed heart-broken by the loss of her husband, but not more than two years afterward she married Mr. Godwin Palma, who was reputed very wealthy. I have not seen her since Olga was a child, but have heard that her second husband ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... frontier town on the Bay of Biscay in the Basses-Pyrenees, known for the manufacture of a liqueur of the same name. French Custom-house; station on the line between Bordeaux and Madrid. Good beach and bathing. Boats can be hired to cross the Bidassoa to Fuenterabia, at about 2 frs. for 3 persons; for information concerning ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... metaphor. I can sail no longer. My vessel cannot be said to be even in port. She is wholly condemned and broken up. To have an idea of that vessel, you must call to mind what you have often seen on the Kentish road. Those planks of tough and hardy oak, that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay, are now turned, with their warped grain and empty trunnion-holes, into very wretched pales for the inclosure of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... after the marriage, Napoleon set out for Italy as Commander-in-Chief of the army. To trace the brilliant campaign of that year, when the tricolor of France was carried from the Bay of Biscay to the Adriatic Sea, is not my business. Suffice it to say that it placed the name of Bonaparte among the foremost names of military leaders of all time. But amid the restless movement of grim war and the glamour of success he never for a day forgot his Josephine. His letters ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... Mediterranean, the duke of Berwick advanced with the French army to the frontiers of Spain, where he took Port-Passage and destroyed six ships of war that were on the stocks; then he reduced Fontarabia and St. Sebastian's, together with Port Antonio in the bottom of the bay of Biscay. In this last exploit the French were assisted by a detachment of English seamen, who burned two large ships unfinished, and a great quantity of naval stores. The king of England, with a view to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett



Words linked to "Bay of Biscay" :   Atlantic Ocean, embayment, bay, Atlantic



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