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Boatswain   /bˈoʊtsweɪn/   Listen
Boatswain

noun
1.
A petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen.  Synonyms: bo's'n, bo'sun, bos'n, bosun.



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"Boatswain" Quotes from Famous Books



... Padre Francesco, the watchman, was glad to talk with some one besides his wife. He enjoyed the title of "Padre," because he had once been master of a small martingane that traded between Civita Vecchia and the south. In still earlier days he had been in deep water and had been boatswain of a square-rigger, yet there was nothing about his appearance now to show that he had been a sailor man. It was ten years since he had left the sea, and he had ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... Gouernour and the Master ryd to Dingen a Cushe,(104) 5 miles distant, to take order for the new victualing of our Flieboat for England, and for reliefe of our sicke and hurt men, but within foure daies after the Boatswain, the Steward, and the Boatswains mate died aboord the Flieboat, and the 28 the Masters mate and two of our chiefs sailers were brought ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... now, miss?' said Dick. 'I had been thinking grandfather, who knows all about sores, seeing as he was boatswain's mate aboard a man-o'-war, might have been able to put young ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples

... the dangers of the ruddy and tranquil sailors exempt from the temptation that contact with women provokes. On Sundays, under the tropic sun or in the ash-colored light of the northern heavens, the boatswain would read the Bible. The men would listen thoughtfully with uncovered heads. The women had dressed themselves in black with lace headdress ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... yardarms, and rudders. That large mind, equal to the highest duties of the general and the statesman, contracted itself to the most minute details of naval architecture and naval discipline. The chief ambition of the great conqueror and legislator was to be a good boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. Holland and England therefore had for him an attraction which was wanting to the galleries and terraces of Versailles. He repaired to Amsterdam, took a lodging in the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... simultaneously grabbed his companion by the skirts and wound their arms about his knees: and so in a trice both heroes were brought to ground. Even so they fought on until quieted by two judicious taps with the hilt of the boatswain's cutlass. I honestly thought he had killed them, but was assured they were merely stunned for the time. The boatswain, it appeared, was an expert, and had already administered the same soothing medicine to two or three of the more violent among the ladies; though loath ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was jonah. but the sea rebels; he will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... utter a word I will shoot you as quickly as I would shoot a couple of dogs which disputed my right to use the highway," said he, in tones that could not have been steadier if he had been ordering the boatswain's mate of the Sumter to pipe sweepers. "Captain, drop that revolver on the floor without moving your ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... She was a large but very weak ship, short and high, small and meagre as regards bulk, not altogether old, but misbuilt. She sailed tolerably well, but was very lank. Two of our crew went with her, namely, Titus, who was to be boatswain, and one of our carpenters, named Herman, who was the best one we had. They went, from the first, to work upon her, for she was lying in winter quarters. Our ship being laden, our captain went on board the large ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... north of Ireland, in a fine clear day succeeding one in which it had almost blown a hurricane. The master had just taken his meridian observation, the officer of the watch had reported the latitude, the captain had ordered it to be made twelve o'clock, and the boatswain, catching a word from the lieutenant, was in the full swing of his "Pipe to dinner!" when the captain ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... provisions left," said the boatswain, "let us take the boats, and pull out to sea. We can go where the ships are, and then we'll have some chance. They'll never find us here, leastways, ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... waited till he vanished in the darkness. Then putting the hollow of a key to his lips, he drew a long trembling sound from it like a boatswain's whistle. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... the attention of the Americans was diverted from the signal-fires to the "Drake." An appearance of life and bustle was observable about the boat. The shrill notes of the boatswain's whistle, and the tramp of men about the capstan, came faintly over the waters. The rigging was full of sailors, and the sails were being quickly spread to catch the fresh breeze. Soon the ship began to move slowly from ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... fire a rocket when the launch left the shore, in order that the captain of the yacht might run in closer to pick them up. As he hurried down the beach, he called to his boatswain to give the signal, and the man answered that he understood and stooped to light a match. King had jumped into the stern and lifted Madame Alvarez after him, leaving her late escort standing with uncovered heads on the beach behind her, when the rocket shot up into the calm white ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... bold as to put in my oar, your honour,"—said the veteran boatswain, on whom the command of the schooner had fallen, as he now advanced, rolling his quid in his mouth, and dropping his hat on his shoulder, while the fingers of the hand which clutched it were busily occupied in scratching his bald head,—"if I may be so bold, there is another chap here as might ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... He was, in fact, the boatswain's mate of the 'Britannia,' as his papers showed. But, separated from Captain Grant at the moment when the ship struck upon the rocks, he had till then believed that the captain with all his crew had perished, and that he, Ayrton, ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... if recalling a distant dream. We, I remember, went in Lord Byron's own carriage, with post-horses; and he sent his groom with two saddle-horses, and a beautifully formed, very ferocious, bull-mastiff, called Nelson, to meet us there. Boatswain[53] went by the side of his valet Frank on the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... the door, and Allan, the boatswain of our brig, stood hat in hand before us. He was a stalwart half-caste of Manhiki, and, perhaps, the greatest MANAIA (Lothario) ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... Straits of Gibraltar I verily thought she'd have sunk, For the wind began so for to alter, She yaw'd just as tho' she was drunk. The squall tore the mainsail to shivers, Helm a-weather, the hoarse boatswain cries; Brace the foresail athwart, see she quivers, As through the rough tempest she flies. But sailors were born for all weathers, Great guns let it blow, high or low, Our duty keeps us to our tethers, And where the gale drives we ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... unwilling subjects, who would take the first chance to mutiny in favour of the Christian adversary. Thus it often happened that a victory was secured by the strong arms of the enemy's chained partizans, who would have given half their lives to promote a defeat. But the sharp lash of the boatswain, who walked the bridge between the banks of rowers, was a present and acute argument which ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... passions, 95 as so much superfluous steam that would endanger the vessel if it were retained. The other, on the contrary, with that sort of calmness of tone which is to the ear what the paleness of anger is to the eye, shall simply say, 'If I chance to be made boatswain, as I hope I soon shall, and can but once get that 100 fellow under my hand (and I shall be upon the watch for him), I'll tickle his pretty skin! I won't hurt him! oh no! I'll only cut the — — to the liver!' I dare appeal to all present, which of the two they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the big boatswain, 'ye've got under the old flag, and we'll soon make you see the difference. Cut out your poor tongue, have they, the rascals, and made a dummy of you? I wish my cat was about their ears! Come along with you, and you shall find what British grog is ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... much flattered by the kindness of Captain Lumley, and went down to his former messmates, with whom he remained until the boatswain piped away the crew of the captain's barge. He then went on deck, and as soon as the captain came up, he went into the boat. The captain followed, and they were soon on board of the London Merchant. Alfred introduced Captain Lumley to his ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... of which spoke the Portuguese language, and they inquired of our mariners if the Moors still infested Spain, whence their ancestors had fled to avoid the distresses which occurred subsequent to the death of Don Roderigo, king of Spain. The boatswain of this ship brought home some of the sand from this island, and sold it to a goldsmith in Lisbon, who procured from it a good quantity of gold. Don Pedro, who then governed the realm, being made acquainted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... before sundown, the captain gave the cheering order for the boatswain to call the hands to "go in swimming;" and, in less than five minutes, the forms of our tars were seen leaping from the arms of the lower yards, into the water. One of the studding sails, with its corners suspended from the main yard-arm and the swinging boom, had been lowered into the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... sounds; but these were of a character to sadden rather than cheer them, for they were sounds to be heard only in the wilderness of the great deep,—such as the half-screaming laugh of the sea-mew, and the wild whistle of the boatswain-bird. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... miles off lay the green point and the white houses which flanked the great African city. Already, upon the headland, could be seen a dark group of waiting townsmen. Gisco and Magro were still watching with puckered gaze the approaching galleys, when the brown Libyan boatswain, with flashing teeth and gleaming eyes, rushed upon the poop, his long thin ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and your old acquaintance, Lord Sandwich, to assist in it; but I could have no hope of getting at his ear, for he has put on such a first-rate tie-wig, on his admission to the admiralty board, that nothing without the lungs of a boatswain can ever think to penetrate the thickness of the curls. I think, however, it does honour to the dignity of ministers: when he was but a patriot, his wig was not of half its present gravity. There are no more changes made: all is quiet yet; but next Thursday the Parliament ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... Sailor, which made him always one of the first on a Yard Arm, either to Hand or Reef, and very inquisitive in the different Methods of working a Ship: His Discourse was turn'd on no other Subject, and he would often get the Boatswain and Carpenter to teach him in their Cabbins the constituent Parts of a Ship's Hull, and how to rigg her, which he generously paid 'em for; and tho' he spent a great Part of his Time with these two Officers, yet he behaved himself ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe

... were alongside, the greater portion of the men went ashore and, in the evening, the boatswain landed with Terence and Ryan, and proceeded with them to a slop shop, where he bought them clothes similar to those worn by the crew. Beyond the fact that these were of nautical appearance, there was no distinctive dress. They ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... distance, and ran towards that part where we had seen the light. We now discerned through the fog the hull and tackling of a large vessel; and notwithstanding the noise of the waves, we were near enough to hear the whistle of the boatswain at the helm, and the shouts of the mariners. As soon as the Saint Geran perceived that we were enough to give her succour, she continued to fire guns regularly at the interval of three minutes. Monsieur de la Bourdonnais caused great fires to be lighted at certain ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... before he came down again and, at the captain's suggestion, both he and Harry went below, and armed themselves with pistols. As soon as they came up again, they took their places by Fairclough. The seamen had all gathered aft. The boatswain had cut the lashings holding the spars—that had been sent down from aloft—in their place by the bulwarks. The boats had all been torn from their davits, or smashed; with the exception of the largest cutter, which lay bottom upwards in the middle of the ship, securely ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... signal from the flag-ship, and then on board all the boats there was a shrill whistle. It was the boatswain piping all hands to quarters. The drummer beat his roll, and the marines seized their muskets. The sailors threw open the ports, ran out the guns, brought up shot and shells, stowed away furniture, took down rammers and sponges, seized their handspikes, stripped off their coats, rolled ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... with maps, horns, and skins of animals, and places a large box covered with a red blanket, as a throne for the king to set upon. As he advanced, my men, forming a guard of honour fired three shots immediately on his setting foot upon our side the river; whilst Frij, with his boatswain's whistle, piped the 'Rogue's March,' to prepare us for his majesty's approach. We saluted him, hat in hand, and, leading the way, showed him in. He was pleased to be complimentary, remarking, what Waseja (fine men) we were, and took his ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... sir, why they refused the bait," said the boatswain of the vessel, who was standing by; "it's because we are now on the track of the Brazilian slavers, and they have been well fed lately, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... imagine how I came to omit a writer whom I have known so many years, unless the following story will explain it. The officer reproved the boatswain for perpetual swearing; the boatswain answered that he heard the officers swear. "Only in an emergency," said the officer. "That's just it," replied the other; "a boatswain's life is a life of 'mergency." Giordano Bruno was all paradox; and my mind was not alive to his paradoxes, just as my ears ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... the respectable stages of antiquity and seemed indissoluble from the green garden in which it stood, and that yet was a sea-traveller in its younger days, and had come round the Horn piecemeal in the belly of a ship, and might have heard the seamen stamping and shouting and the note of the boatswain's whistle. It will recall to you the nondescript inhabitants now so widely scattered:- the two horses, the dog, and the four cats, some of them still looking in your face as you read these lines; - the poor lady, so unfortunately ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dying, he kept his own counsel, and was content to vanish out of life, even as a speck of foam melts back into the ocean. At 11 A.M., for the first time, in a cruise likely to be fatal to many on board, the boatswain piped "all hands to bury the dead!" The sailor's corpse, covered with the union of his country's flag, was placed in the gangway. Two hundred and fifty officers and men stood around, uncovered, and reverently listened to the beautiful and solemn burial service, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... Joseph Porter, K.C.B. First Lord of the Admiralty. Captain Corcoran Commanding H.M.S. Pinafore. Ralph Rackstraw Able seaman. Dick Deadeye Able seaman. Bill Bobstay Boatswain's mate. Bob Becket Carpenter's mate. Tom Tucker Midshipmate. Sergeant of marines Josephine The Captain's daughter. Hebe Sir Joseph's first cousin. Little Buttercup A Portsmouth bumboat woman. First Lord's sisters, his cousins, his aunts, sailors, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... cream, and still so much more, as in the case of Mr. Weller's weal pies, on the reputation of "the lady as makes it," that it will hardly serve the requirements of a severe scientific statement. Copper-color has an excess of red, and sepia is too brown; the tarry tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time being. The flipper of your legitimate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... captains put on their caps and buttoned up their pea-jackets, and started for Captain Cephas's house, but not before Captain Eli had carefully fastened every window and every door except the front door, and had told Mrs. Trimmer how to fasten that when they had gone, and had given her a boatswain's whistle, which she might blow out of the window if there should be a sudden croup and it should be necessary for any one to go anywhere. He was sure he could hear it, for the wind was exactly right for him to hear a whistle ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... exertions of his chief mate, Mr Bowen, George was fortunate enough to pick up a very good crew, comprising a second mate—who acted also as boatswain—a carpenter, a steward, a black cook, two able-seamen, four ordinary ditto, and two well-grown lads, who had already been a voyage or two in a coaster. This constituted a complement of fourteen men, all told; just sufficient to handle the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... time to press her hand. The boatswain's pipe whistled, and the big ship was already sliding in the water as I leaped into my pungy, which Hugo was holding to the ladder. We pulled off ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the captain,' replied the wretch, 'and put his head at the main topgallant masthead—and we will put the first-mate's head at the mizzen, and the boatswain's at the fore. The other convicts who are not with us in the matter we shall put on shore at some island, and leave them to shift for themselves, they are worth nothing. The ship is a good prize, for the captain has a large sum ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton

... away to give the order to Dr. Burke. A boatswain was directed to attend to having all of Mr. Clodis's baggage go over ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... grego{1} in a winter's watch, if I don't think you had better keep a good look-out for the wind's changing aft; and be ready to haul in your weather-braces, and bear the back-stays abreast the top-br'im, ere the boatswain's mate pipes the starboard-watch a-hoy." "Tush, tush, old fellow," said Horace, with whom I found Lord Anglesey's cutter stood a one at Lloyd's. "May my mother sell vinegar, and I stay at home to bottle it off, if I would give a farthing per cent, to be ensured for my whole risk upon ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... in calm weather and at other times when you shall fortune to come to anchor in the seas during the voyage, you shall for the company's profit, and for good husbanding of the victuals aboard, call upon the boatswain and other of the company to use such hooks and other engines as they have aboard to take fish with, that such fish so taken may be eaten for the cause aforesaid; and if there be no such engines aboard, then to provide some before you go ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... of a different sentiment, compare The Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog (first published in Hobhouse's Imit. and Transl., 1809), and the prefatory inscription on Boatswain's grave in the gardens of Newstead, dated November 16, 1808 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... what he viewed as an unprovoked outrage; and in spite of his precarious situation, and though fully aware that he was in the Captain's power, he was on the point of giving a loose to those feelings which calumniated innocence is at all times privileged to express—when the boatswain tapped him on the shoulder ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... to be no place in the service for me; I cannot decide what rating to select. To be a quartermaster one must know how to signal, and signaling always tires my arms. One must know how to blow a horrid shrill little whistle in order to become a boatswain mate, and my ears could never stand this. To be a yeoman, it is necessary to know how to rattle papers in an important manner and disseminate misinformation with a straight face, and this I could ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... together, and the letters got into Pakenham's hand: he and Sneyd had gone into the boat, so we saw no more of them; but Lestock sent us off on a new hurry-skurry for pistols, ordered but not brought. To the Minerva counting-house we drove, to send the pistols by some boatswain there: got to counting-house: "Boatswain gone?" "No, ma'am, not yet," said the dear, smiling clerk. So all was right, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... up, so that it creaked in the old woodwork, and he touched his hat brim as he replied: "Rosenbom, by Your Majesty's leave. Once upon a time boatswain on the man-of-war, Dristigheten; after completed service, sexton at the Admiral's church—and, lately, carved in wood and exhibited in the churchyard ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... ship was called the Rose. She had three masts, and a crew of thirty men, with six big guns, for we were going to some curious, out-of-the-way places, and might have to fight the savages, I was told. She had three mates besides the captain, and another officer called a boatswain, who had a good deal to do with managing the men. As soon as I got on board, the captain told me to go to him, and that he would look after me. His name ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... his second mate and five A.B.'s, and the third mate and two others had to go into hospital. In their places he shipped a new second mate—a man named Juan Almanza—and twelve seamen, ten of whom were either Chilenos or Peruvians, and the remaining two Greeks. The former boatswain he promoted to the third mate's birth. Almanza proved to be a good officer, and the new men gave him satisfaction, though his agent at Valdivia had urged him not to take the two Greeks, who, he said, ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke

... he found: Peter Plum, Bob Robins, and Tom Tuck. Joe was admiral; Plum, coming next, combined a number of grades. He was captain, first lieutenant, and boatswain. Robins was the ship's working company, and Tom Tuck cooked and was the all-round handy man of ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... can't break this boat," said our young boatswain; "she's built strong." It was well to find among the crew this feeling of assurance in the gallant little vessel. I, too, was confident in her seaworthiness. Nevertheless, I shortened sail and brought her to the wind, ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... unaccountable reason, had suddenly broken down. Yes, it must be the orchestra which disaster had overtaken, for a voice very certainly continued. No, not a voice, but voices—those of Vanstone the captain, and Price the first mate, and old Billy Tinn the boatswain—loud, imperative, violently remonstrant, but swept under and swamped at moments by cries and volleys of foulest, Neapolitan argot from hoarse, Neapolitan throats. And that abruptly silenced orchestra?—Richard ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... fishery, the captain receives one-sixteenth, the master, one twenty-fifth, the second master, one thirty-fifth, the boatswain, one-sixtieth, each sailor, one eighty-fifth of the profit. (Humboldt, N. Espagne, IV, 10.) This system is very common in North America. See Carey in J. S. Mill's Principles, V, ch. 9, 7. In heathen Iceland, mariners were always paid a certain quota of the profits. Leo, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... Diana had had her full complement of men, you might have been whistling in the breakers still. Now you belong to his Majesty, and your names are entered on the books of his ship. It's more than you deserve, but that can't be helped. Report yourselves to the boatswain." ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... The boatswain of The Mantelpiece, He blushed and spoke to Captain Reece: "I beg your honor's leave," he said, "If you wish to ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... Timor. Search made for the Trial Rocks. Anchorage in Goose-Island Bay. Interment of the boatswain, and sickly state of the ship's company. Escape from the bay, and passage through Bass' Strait. Arrival at Port Jackson. Losses in men. Survey and condemnation of the ship. Plans for continuing the survey; but preparation finally made for returning ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... uttered—of course, much magnified—were circulated that evening through the whole ship; the matter was canvassed in the gun-room by the officers, and descanted upon by the midshipmen as they walked the deck. The boatswain talked it over with the other warrant officers, till the grog was all gone, and then dismissed it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... unless he was 'in hot water,' either with the passengers or crew. There were six mates, or more properly lieutenants, for all the officers were in uniform. There were also a dozen or more midshipmen, a boatswain and his two mates, gunners, quarter-masters, armorers, sail-makers, and carpenters in abundance. In short, we were fitted out in complete man-of-war fashion; not forgetting the cat-o'-nine-tails, which was used with great liberality. The crew was made up of all nations, but the majority consisted ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... The boatswain, with a party of men, being in the woods cutting broom, some of them found a private hut of the natives, in which was deposited most of the treasure they had received from us, as well as some other articles of their own. It is very probable some were set ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... was hated by the passengers, he was not loved by his officers. Singularly enough, he seems to have been well liked by the crew, although there were some exceptions even there. Anderson, the boatswain, left the ship at Hawaii. There had been difficulties between them, and the captain was glad to see him go. A sample of Thorn's method of administering discipline ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... day, during a calm, the boats were lowered, and several of us rowed about to look at the Hampshire from a little distance, while some bathed in a tropical sea. There was no danger of sharks, which keep away when several bathe together, or even one, if he splashes about enough. The boatswain caught a turtle, from which we had some capital soup. Turtles are very tenacious of life. A knife was thrust into its throat, and its jugular vein severed, but if it had not been cut up soon after it would have lived many hours. Indeed, the heart alone kept beating long after it was ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... the first Fotherington might have been rocked,—planted there to be entertained by Tommy, who, inserting himself at the other end, with a hand on either side, loudly rocked the great ark quite across the room from one end to the other, piping meanwhile, like a boatswain's whistle, an interminable ballad of the Fair Rosamond that his sister Margaret had taught him, without ever dreaming of the evil use to which it would be put, and piping the more noisily the more he guessed at Frederick's annoyance. ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... shall we mingle the kingly art in the same class with the art of the herald, the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, and the numerous kindred arts which exercise command; or, as in the preceding comparison we spoke of manufacturers, or sellers for themselves, and of retailers,—seeing, too, that the class of supreme rulers, or rulers for themselves, is almost nameless—shall ...
— Statesman • Plato

... the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do: but the boatswain protesting to him, that if he did not, the ship would founder, he consented; and when they had cut away the fore-mast, the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... first watch after the Fortuna had been made snug. He took the boatswain aside (an ancient sea-dog like himself), and he said in a gruff whisper: "My lad, this here ain't the island laid down in our sailing orders. See if mischief don't come of disobeying orders before we are many ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... seamanship, yet he was a good mathematician. I still remember the laughs I had at the care he took of his lily-white hands, and the jokes we cracked upon his girl-like manners, voice, and conversation. The boatswain, who was in his watch, assured me that he rarely gave an order without humming it out to a tune of some ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... carpenter were owners of the vessel. The crew of a boatswain and four picked men received food, mostly dried fish, but no wages. They were entitled to a certain share of the profits of the voyage, and thus were interested in its success, and on very different terms of intimacy with the captain to what ordinary ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... night, having prepared their weapons and thrown off their trousers and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came altogether on the quarter-deck and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain immediately reprimanded them and ordered them to be gone. On this Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck. When the detached Indians ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... officer made sure that the Florence was securely fixed in the gravel. The party walked down stream, embarked in the boat of which the captain had spoken. It was pulled by two men, and after they had gone about a mile, the captain began to blow a boatswain's whistle which he took from ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... or you are all dead men this moment." "Who must we yield to? Where are they?" says Smith again. "Here they are," says he; "here's our captain and fifty men with him, have been hunting you these two hours; the boatswain is killed, Will Fry is wounded, and I am a prisoner; and if you do not yield you are all lost."—"Will they give us quarter then?" says Tom Smith, "and we will yield."—-"I'll go and ask, if you promise to yield," said Robinson; so he asked the captain. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the black shore Indians were gathering, and soon a fleet of canoes containing over three hundred warriors was slowly and silently moving towards the becalmed Gladwyn. So noiseless was their approach that they were within a few yards of the vessel before a watchful sentry, the boatswain, discerned them. At his warning cry the crew leapt to their quarters. The bow gun thundered out, and its flash gave the little band on the boat a momentary glimpse of a horde of painted enemies. There was ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... Captain Stott was appointed to the Alarm, in which Mr. Pellew followed him to the Mediterranean, where an unpleasant difference with his commander made him leave the ship. Captain Stott, who had been a boatswain with Boscawen, was an excellent seaman, but unfortunately retained some habits not suited to his present rank. He kept a mistress on board. Among the midshipmen was a boy named Frank Cole, who was three years younger than Mr. Pellew, but had entered on board the ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... ordinary, in one of which this man was reported to be, are those, which are out of commission, and which are laid up in the different rivers and waters in the neighbourhood of the King's dock-yards. Every one of these has a boatswain, gunner, carpenter, and assistants on board. They lie usually in divisions of ten or twelve; and a master in the navy has a command ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... gunner, Mr. Ledward, surgeon, and the master, were confined to their cabins; and also the clerk, Mr. Samuel, but he soon obtained leave to come on deck. The fore hatchway was guarded by centinels; the boatswain and carpenter were, however, allowed to come on deck, where they saw me standing abaft the mizen-mast, with my hands tied behind my back, under a guard, with Christian ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... decided had been concerted with King. A former boatswain of King's, called Hart, had a ketch. Cottrell, apparently Ralegh's old Tower servant, who had once before borne witness against him, had found Hart for King. Before Ralegh reached London, King had arranged with Hart through Cottrell that the ketch should be held ready ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... that none choose to own them. Of forty-four said to belong to the Ramilies, she wanted only six the other day, but her boatswain could find out only those amongst them that ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... of this island were not equally well disposed towards the Spaniards, for the boatswain's mate of the Almiranta was wounded in one cheek by an arrow: certain natives being envious of the friendship of the others, or being enraged because, when they called to the Spaniards, they did not care to stop and speak with them, shot ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge

... over the tranquil surface of the looking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simply paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting medley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain, as a boatswain's whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that same infinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now, 'What are you going to do? What are ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... carried on board an Indiaman, and immediately put down into the run, where I was confined ten days. * * * On the seventh day I heard the boatswain pipe all hands, and about noon I was called up on board, where I found myself on board the Princess Royal, Captain Robert Kerr, bound to the East Indies, with six others, all large ships belonging to the East India Company." He had been told that he was to be sent back to America to ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... "Ho! you Boatswain that walks the deck, How does it happen you're not a wreck? One and another have come to grief, How have you dodged by ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... plate iron is attached, with which they make signals to each other, and the fatakie, when apart, by clinking the rings. This method of communication is very significant, and it is understood as well, and is as promptly answered or obeyed, as the boatswain's whistle on board a ship. The collision of the rings produces a harsh, grating noise, loud enough to be heard at ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... the slippery height they fell, While dreadful yawn'd beneath the jaws of hell. 690 Amid this fearful trance, a thundering sound He hears, and thrice the hollow decks rebound: Upstarting from his couch, on deck he sprung, Thrice with shrill note the boatswain's whistle rung: All hands unmoor! proclaims a boisterous cry; All hands unmoor! the cavern'd rocks reply. Roused from repose, aloft the sailors swarm, And with their levers soon the windlass arm: The order given, up springing with a bound, They fix the bars, and heave the windlass [3] ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... company, of which Lieutenant Pieter Ebel was captain, and William van Reijnevelt ensign-bearer, was fifty-five strong. The major's second company, which was composed of seamen and pilots, with Dirck Jansz Verstraten of Ossanen as their captain, boatswain's- mate Dirck Claesz of Munnikendam as ensign-bearer, and the sail-maker Jan Illisz of Honsum as lieutenant, consisted of fifty men; making altogether 317 men. The 10th, after breakfast, the fleet got under way, and ran close under the guns of Fort Casemier, and anchored ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... the first breeze that came to us, the two craft should close, in order that I might have an opportunity of going on board and adding my signature to a declaration that he proposed to insert in the City of Calcutta's log-book relative to the statement made to us by the boatswain, and the circumstances generally under which he was assuming ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... Sumner's Islands seems to tug at its moorings like a cruiser swinging at a short hawser in the shelter of Stony beach. If you will stand on the tip of its gray rock prow and face the sea it is hard not to feel the rise and fall of surges under you, and in fancy you have one ear cocked for the boatswain's whistle and the call to the watch to bear a hand and get the anchor aboard. Just a moment and you will feel the pulse of the screw, hear the clink-clank of shovels and slice-bars, tinkling faintly up the ventilator; one bell will sound in the engine room and under slowest speed ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... (he) afterward came up upon the deck and there before the boatswain and certain of us did most unchristianlike speak these words: that if he might but live to have the opportunity to kill the said Tavernour he would think it to be the happiest day that ever he saw in his life, an it were but with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... who was mate of the watch, assisted by Charles Churchill, master-at-arms, Alexander Smith (the John Adams of Pitcairn Island), and Thomas Burkitt, able seamen, seized the captain, tied his hands behind his back, hauled him out of his berth, and forced him on deck. The boatswain, William Cole, was ordered to hoist out the ship's launch, which measured twenty-three feet from stem to stern, and into this open boat Bligh, together with eighteen of the crew, who were or were supposed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... constitute four crews (or a division) with acting captain, first, second, and third lieutenants, lieutenant surgeon, quartermaster, boatswain, and one coxswain for each crew ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... the way, is to send a consort after us if we don't turn up by the end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing master—a stiff man, which I regret, but, in all other respects, a treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow. I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things shall go man-o'-war fashion on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sent to school to learn Latin and Greek, which there are various ways of teaching. Some tutors attempt the suaviter in modo, my schoolmaster preferred the fortiter in re; and, as the boatswain said, by the "instigation" of a large knotted stick, he drove knowledge into our skulls as a caulker drives oakum into the seams of a ship. Under such tuition, we made astonishing progress; and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the realization that life hung on their efforts, the boys swayed at the line until at last they grasped the end of the hawser. To it was attached another smaller rope for pulling in a boatswain's chair. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... is time I should say something of the head of the family—was an excessively fat, coarse-looking, dark-skinned personage, of some fifty years, with a voice like a boatswain in a quinsy. Heaven can tell, perhaps, why the worthy major allied his fortunes with hers, for she was evidently of a very inferior rank in society, could never have been aught than downright ugly, and I never heard that she brought him any money. "Spoiled five," the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... priests are all saying mass, and the people are all praying, the devils cannot bear it, and are driven out to sea for the day. Very strange things happen then, I assure you. Some day I will tell you how the boatswain of a ship I once sailed in rove the end of the devil's tail through a link of the chain, made a Flemish knot at the end to stop it, and let go the anchor. So the devil went to the bottom by the run. We unshackled the chain and wore the ship to the wind, and after that ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... have some private information not generally attainable, as he knew it had been poor Merry's mission to crush him in the bud. He was very frail and tearful; for being aware that a shepherd's mission was to pipe to his flocks, and that a boatswain's mission was to pipe all hands, and that one man's mission was to be a paid piper, and another man's mission was to pay the piper, so he had got it into his head that his own peculiar mission was to pipe his eye. Which ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... passed between my side and arm. The rogue, finding he had not shot me, turned the butt-end of the pistol, and gave me such a blow on the head as stunned me, so that I fell on my knees, but immediately recovering myself, I jumped out of the steerage upon the quarter-deck, where the pirate boatswain was. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... Cape, against the wet and unhealthy north-west monsoon, the sick list grew larger. Man after man succumbed, and before half the distance to Capetown was traversed twenty-two more were carried off. Green, the astronomer, two more of Banks' staff, two midshipmen, the boatswain and carpenter were among the number. The crew was ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... case of plain Trigonometry." On the subject of the navy he wrote Robert Morris, at a later period: "The navy is in a wretched condition. It wants a man of ability at its head who could bring on a purgation, and distinguish between the abilities of a gentleman and those of a mere sailor or boatswain's mate." In still another letter: "If my feeble voice is heard when I return to Philadelphia, our navy matters will assume a better face." Again, as late as 1782, he wrote Captain O'Neill: "I am altogether in the dark about what has been done to reestablish the credit of ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... quiet and silent, with his bright eyes closed or hid away under his paws. His movements were regulated entirely by mine. When I went below, so did he, either to crouch at my feet at meals, or to go to his berth when I turned into my hammock; and the instant I was summoned by the hoarse voice of the boatswain, or of one of his mates, to keep my watch, he was on his feet ready to accompany me on deck. He was only unhappy when I had to go aloft, and then Sills and Broom told me that he kept running under wherever I was, looking up into the rigging, and watching me with intense ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... is the excitement of reefing topsails. Your hammock seems especially comfortable as you drowsily feel the accelerated pitching of the ship and the rattle of rain on deck, when the boatswain's shrill call rings through the ship, "All hands, reef topsails; tumble out, and up with you, everybody!" On deck Egyptian darkness, driving rain, and salt spray, the ship staggering under a press of sail, or, as happened in her last cruise, the topsail ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... unusually protracted for we were short handed; the boatswain, some of the sailors and most of the land party being marooned on shore. We were now anxious to get everybody on board and to be off. The completion of their quarters was to be left to the Macquarie Island party, and it was important that we should make the most of the southern season. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... deck from the cabin, bawled lustily for his spy-glass; the mate in still louder accents hailed the masthead with a tremendous 'where-away?' The black cook thrust his woolly head from the galley, and Boatswain, the dog, leaped up between the knight-heads, and barked most furiously. Land ho! Aye, there it was. A hardly perceptible blue irregular outline, indicating the bold contour of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... for singing. He sings at certain parts of his work;—indeed, he must sing, if he would work. On vessels of war, the drum and fife or boatswain's whistle furnish the necessary movement-regulator. There, where the strength of one or two hundred men can be applied to one and the same effort, the labor is not intermittent, but continuous. The men form on either ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... his first experience of working aboard a ship, and he expected to find a scrupulous neatness, and hammocks in place of beds. Instead he looked on a double row of bunks heaped with swarthy quilts, and the boatswain with a silent gesture indicated that one of these belonged to Harrigan. He went to it without a word and sat down cross-legged to survey his new quarters. It was more like the bunkhouse of a western ranch than anything else he had been in, ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... The boatswain repeated the order, to the no small amazement of our hero, who, having always associated a drag with the wheel of a coach, was puzzled to imagine how it could be applied ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... another was blinded with lobster-sauce spilt over him by the steward, or another had a fall on deck and fainted. The ship's cook was drunk yesterday morning (having got at some salt-water-damaged whiskey), and the captain ordered the boatswain to play upon him with the hose of the fire-engine until he roared for mercy—which he didn't get: for he was sentenced to look out, for four hours at a stretch for four nights running, without a great-coat, and to have his grog stopped. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... that the fault was not occult, but a matter of spiritual deterioration in himself. To be in harmony with the lonely dead there must be no dross about the mind. The preoccupations of routine, the occasional dislikes of some stupid ship's officer, or boatswain, the troubles about cargo—this, that, the other pettinesses might cloud his eye as a mist clouds a lens. There came to him the memory of a translation from some Chinese poet he had heard somewhere, in ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... was to command the expedition; with him, in the pinnace, were Mr. W. L. Partridge, mate; Dr. Simpson, assistant-surgeon; Mr. Hallowes, midshipman; 14 seamen, and 5 marines. In the first cutter was Mr. D'Aeth, Mr. Douglas, from Sarawak, and Mr. Collins, the boatswain; in the second cutter, Mr. Elliott, the master, and Mr. Jenkins, midshipman. The Jolly Bachelor was commanded by Lieutenant Tottenham, and Mr. Comber, midshipman, with Mr. Brooke's medical friend, Dr. Treacher, and an amateur gentleman, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... altered to a square rig and had received more guns and men to worry the enemy's privateers. The brig-of-war was a kind of vessel heartily disliked by seamen and now vanished from blue water. The immortal Boatswain Chucks of Marryat proclaimed that "they would certainly damn their inventor to all eternity" and that "their common, low names, 'Pincher,' 'Thrasher,' 'Boxer,' 'Badger,' and all that sort, are quite ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... be lively, and yourself again. Or mind; I'll call you Don Doloroso, and that shall be your name in England. See there!—that's—that's? what's the name of that place? Hoy! Mr. Skerne!' She hailed the boatswain, passing, 'Do tell me the name of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Means of their Escape. At length, good Words, and a Bowl of Punch the Captain made for each Mess, laid this Storm for a while; but that which at first pacify'd these turbulent Spirits, was what blew them up again: For when they were all drunk, the Boatswain said the Captain was a Coward, and took a Merchant-man for a Man of War: That his Fear had magnified the Object, and deprived them of the Means of either taking others, or defending themselves. This he said in the Captain's Hearing, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... boatswain of the NATURALISTE found this plate half buried in sand, lying near an oaken post to which it had been nailed. Captain Hamelin, with rare good taste, had a new post made, and the plate erected in the old spot. Another outward ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc



Words linked to "Boatswain" :   seaman, old salt, tar, seafarer, boatswain bird, gob, boatswain's chair, Jack-tar, jack, sea dog, mariner, bo'sun



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