George Bancroft

Bottom

Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped.

Bowery

The emigrants [in New York] were scattered on boweries or plantations; and seeing the evils of this mode of living widely apart, they were advised, in 1643 and 1646, by the Dutch authorities, to gather into “villages, towns, and hamlets, as the English were in the habit of doing.”

Capacious

In the capacious recesses of his mind.

Captious

Captious restraints on navigation.

Centralize

[To] centralize the power of government.

Cession

A cession of the island of New Orleans.

Circumscribe

To circumscribe royal power.

Closet

He was to call a new legislature, to closet its members.

Colonization

The wide continent of America invited colonization.

Compete

The rival statesmen, with eyes fixed on America, were all the while competing for European alliances.

Confederacy

Virginia promoted a confederacy.

Confluence

New York stood at the confluence of two rivers.

Corruption

They abstained from some of the worst methods of corruption usual to their party in its earlier days.

Declaim

Grenville seized the opportunity to declaim on the repeal of the stamp act.

Defer

The house, deferring to legal right, acquiesced.

Delegate

Delegated executive power.

Deliberative

A consummate work of deliberative wisdom.

Demoralize

The vices of the nobility had demoralized the army.

Deny

The falsehood of denying his opinion.

Desert

The soldiers . . . deserted in numbers.

Desertion

Such a resignation would have seemed to his superior a desertion or a reproach.

Detachment

Troops . . . widely scattered in little detachments.

Devise

Devising schemes to realize his ambitious views.

Fines upon devises were still exacted.

Difficulty

Measures for terminating all local difficulties.

disability

Chatham refused to see him, pleading his disability.

Disadvantage

They would throw a construction on his conduct, to his disadvantage before the public.

Discountenance

A town meeting was convened to discountenance riot.

Dishonest

The dishonest profits of men in office.

Dispute

To seize goods under the disputed authority of writs of assistance.

Dissatisfy

The dissatisfied factions of the autocracy.

Dissoluteness

Chivalry had the vices of dissoluteness.

Distinctive

The distinctive character and institutions of New England.

Disturbance

The disturbance was made to support a general accusation against the province.

Divide

A gulf, a strait, the sea intervening between islands, divide less than the matted forest.

Divine

A sagacity which divined the evil designs.

Doubtful

Is it a great cruelty to expel from our abode the enemy of our peace, or even the doubtful friend [i. e., one as to whose sincerity there may be doubts]?

Effrontery

Corruption lost nothing of its effrontery.

Elective

The independent use of their elective franchise.

Embarrassment

The embarrassments tom commerce growing out of the late regulations.

Emolument

A long . . . enjoyment of the emoluments of office.

Encroachment

An unconstitutional encroachment of military power on the civil establishment.

Enthusiasm

Exhibiting the seeming contradiction of susceptibility to enthusiasm and calculating shrewdness.

Error

His judgment was often in error, though his candor remained unimpaired.

Establish

Confidence which must precede union could be established only by consummate prudence and self-control.

Exaction

Illegal exactions of sheriffs and officials.

Exactly

His enemies were pleased, for he had acted exactly as their interests required.

Exceptionless

A universal, . . . exceptionless disqualification.

experienced

The ablest and most experienced statesmen.

Explicit

The language of the charter was too explicit to admit of a doubt.

Extreme

His parsimony went to the extreme of meanness.

Fletch

[Congress] fletched their complaint, by adding: “America loved his brother.”

Hysteric

With no hysteric weakness or feverish excitement, they preserved their peace and patience.

Imbitter

Imbittered against each other by former contests.

Low-minded

All old religious jealousies were condemned as low-minded infirmities.

Minute

The Empress of Russia, with her own hand, minuted an edict for universal tolerance.

Ordinary

He exacted a tribute for licenses to hawkers and peddlers and to ordinaries.

Popularity

A little time be allowed for the madness of popularity to cease.

Racket

Each one [of the Indians] has a bat curved like a crosier, and ending in a racket.

Regulate

The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police.

Regulator

A few stood neutral, or declared in favor of the Regulators.

Salient

He [Grenville] had neither salient traits, nor general comprehensiveness of mind.

Secundo-geniture

The kingdom of Naples . . . was constituted a secundo-geniture of Spain.

Severalty

Forests which had never been owned in severalty.

Temper

Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system.

Tenure

That the tenure of estates might rest on equity, the Indian title to lands was in all cases to be quieted.

Troll

Their young men . . . trolled along the brooks that abounded in fish.

Trope

In his frequent, long, and tedious speeches, it has been said that a trope never passed his lips.

Tropic

The brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the greenhouse and the saloon.

Vulgar

The mechanical process of multiplying books had brought the New Testament in the vulgar tongue within the reach of every class.

Waste

The gloomy waste of waters which bears his name is his tomb and his monument.

Web

Not web might be woven, not a shuttle thrown, or penalty of exile.

Wharf

Commerce pushes its wharves into the sea.

Whimsey

Mistaking the whimseys of a feverish brain for the calm revelation of truth.

Woodland

Woodlands and cultivated fields are harmoniously blended.

Yeomanry

The enfranchised yeomanry began to feel an instinct for dominion.

Zone

Commerce . . . defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades.