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Cabal   Listen
noun
Cabal  n.  
1.
Tradition; occult doctrine. See Cabala. (Obs.)
2.
A secret. (Obs.) "The measuring of the temple, a cabal found out but lately."
3.
A number of persons united in some close design, usually to promote their private views and interests in church or state by intrigue; a secret association composed of a few designing persons; a junto. Note: It so happend, by a whimsical coincidence, that in 1671 the cabinet consisted of five persons, the initial letters of whose names made up the word cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale.
4.
The secret artifices or machinations of a few persons united in a close design; intrigue. "By cursed cabals of women."
Synonyms: Junto; intrigue; plot; combination; conspiracy. Cabal, Combination, Faction. An association for some purpose considered to be bad is the idea common to these terms. A combination is an organized union of individuals for mutual support, in urging their demands or resisting the claims of others, and may be good or bad according to circumstances; as, a combiniation of workmen or of employers to effect or to prevent a change in prices. A cabal is a secret association of a few individuals who seek by cunning practices to obtain office and power. A faction is a larger body than a cabal, employed for selfish purposes in agitating the community and working up an excitement with a view to change the existing order of things. "Selfishness, insubordination, and laxity of morals give rise to combinations, which belong particularly to the lower orders of society. Restless, jealous, ambitious, and little minds are ever forming cabals. Factions belong especially to free governments, and are raised by busy and turbulent spirits for selfish purposes".






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cabal" Quotes from Famous Books



... (substitute) 147; last shift &c. (necessity) 601. measure, step; stroke, stroke of policy; master stroke; trump card, court card; cheval de bataille[Fr], great gun; coup, coup d'etat[Fr]; clever stroke, bold stroke, good move, good hit, good stroke; bright thought, bright idea. intrigue, cabal, plot, conspiracy, complot[obs3], machination; subplot, underplot[obs3], counterplot. schemer, schemist[obs3], schematist|; strategist, machinator; projector, artist, promoter, designer &c. v.; conspirator; intrigant &c. (cunning) 702[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... no Spanish provisions remaining and no wine; neither had we any flesh, except a few of the huties already mentioned, which were procured by barter from the Indians. Those who still remained in health thought it very hard to be so long confined, and began to cabal among themselves. They alleged that the admiral would never return into Spain, as he had been turned off by their majesties; and would far less go to Hispaniola, where he had been refused admittance on his last coming from Spain: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... Devon Railway, and lies in a rocky nook on the confines of Dartmoor. Macaulay, whose brother was vicar of the neighboring parish of Bovey-Tracey, knew it well, and tells us in his History that Clifford (a member of the Cabal ministry) retired to the woods of Ugbrook. He was a lucky man to have such paternal acres to retire to, but probably the visitor to-day sees this park in a condition which Charles's minister would indeed have enjoyed. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... parliamentary strategy and political conduct. They intrigued, they bribed, they bought, they cajoled, they paltered, they threatened, they made unsparing use of money and of power, they employed every art to carry out high and national purposes which the most unscrupulous cabal could have used to secure the attainment of selfish and ignoble ends. Their enemies had put one great advantage into their hands. The conduct of Bolingbroke and of Oxford during recent years had left the Whigs the sole ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... his second Meeting—an ordinary Board—summarily. He was so dictatorial that his fellow directors were left in cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old Forsyte, which they were far from intending to stand ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... this step at first. The mistake probably resulted from his besetting sin—excess of confidence. On 26th January he expressed to Cornwallis his deep disappointment and grief at the action of the Dublin Parliament, which he ascribed to prejudice and cabal. Clearly he had underrated the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... literary and artistic cabal, by which a rival play of Phdre, by Pradon, was momentarily preferred to his own, Racine now withdrew from the stage. Appointed soon after to the not very onerous post of historiographer to the King, he lived for a period of twelve years a ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... do expect to have their day now soon; for my Lord of Buckingham is a declared friend to them, and even to the Quakers, who had very good words the other day from the King himself: and, what is more, the Archbishop of Canterbury is called no more to the Cabal, nor, by the way, Sir W. Coventry; which I am sorry for, the Cabal at present being, as he says, the King, and Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Keeper, the Duke of Albemarle, and Privy Seale. The Bishops, differing from the King in ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... that all was well, appearances notwithstanding, since Necker was more firmly in the saddle than ever. He did not know that at the very moment in which he was speaking so confidently, the oft-dismissed and oft-recalled M. Necker had just been dismissed yet again by the hostile cabal about the Queen. Privilege wanted conclusive measures, and conclusive measures it would have—conclusive ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... Potts reflected more favorably; but still he hesitated. He was unable to believe that these certificates of his excellence might be obtained. The bar and the commercial element of Little Arcady had been cold, not to say suspicious, toward him. It was an unpleasant thing to mention, but a cabal had undeniably been formed. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... in February, 1765, Mahomed Reza Khan was appointed guardian to his children, and administrator of his office, or regent, which appointment the Court of Directors did approve. But the party opposite to Mahomed Reza Khan having continued to cabal against him, sundry accusations were framed relative to oppression at the time of the famine, and for a balance due during his employment of collector of the revenues; upon which the Directors did order him to be deprived of his office, and a strict inquiry ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... looked each other squarely in the eye. The ex-President of a great republic and the master of a worn-out tramp steamer were both born leaders of men. Whatsoever prospect of a cabal existed previously, it was scotched now, beyond doubt. Henceforth, no matter what ills threatened, surely the little army mustered on the Grand-pere rock would stand or ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... member of the family who played the most important part in history is Sir Thomas Clifford, afterwards the Lord Clifford whose initial is the first of the five that together spell 'Cabal.' In its early days, he was the leading spirit of that famous council. One branch of the Cliffords had settled in Holland, and it was probably in staying there with his relations that Sir Thomas had been brought to the notice of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson declared to me. "The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should have the galleries washed with brimstone," the honest fellow swore, and always vowed ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... one man to another. Had independence been delayed a few months longer, this continent would have been plunged into irrecoverable confusion: some violent for it, some against it, till, in the general cabal, the rich would have been ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to independence that every Tory owes the present safety which he lives in; for by that, and that only, we emerged from a state of dangerous suspense, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Southerner by birth and training; was a patriot, possessed of great common sense, and knew nothing of intrigue, and was endowed with a high sense of justice, and believed in the rights of the majority. He belonged to no cabal to promote, extend, or perpetuate slavery, and, probably, in his conscience was opposed to it. His Southern friends could not use him, and when they demanded his aid, as President, to plant slavery in California, he not only declined to serve them, but openly declared ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... condemnation of his capacity by mild praise of his character, who had hoped to displace him from the presidency, and who, in the effort to do so, had engaged in what might have been stigmatized even as a cabal. Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories innumerable of Chase's hostility to him, and contemptuous remarks about him; but to all such communications he quietly refused to give ear. What Mr. Chase thought or felt concerning him was not pertinent ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... he leaves the artifices of a cabal, and strikes down below the surface to the working of deep social forces, that we feel the breadth and power of Burke's method. "I am not one of those," he began, "who think that the people are never wrong. They ...
— Burke • John Morley

... Anglican church, and the church was determined to tolerate no relaxation of the penal code against other Catholics. At first Charles had to submit to Clarendon and the church; but in 1667 he gladly replaced Clarendon by the Cabal administration, among the members of which the only bond of unity was that it did not contain a sound Anglican churchman. With its assistance he published his Declarations of Indulgence for Roman Catholics and Dissenters (1672), and sought to secure himself against parliamentary ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... the nations were standing, as it were, shoulder to shoulder against the walk of time and against his gentle act and art. They had just called iron into their cabal. Cornelius came from Munich to London, looked at the walls at Westminster, and put a heart of confidence into the breast of the Commission. The situation, he averred, need not be too damp for immortality, with due care. What he had done in the Glyptothek and in the Pinacothek might be done ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... That was what it amounted to. She had stolen his confidence, as only a selfish woman could. And against that cabal of mother and son he felt helpless. It was even more than that. As against Natalie's indulgence he did not wish to pose as a mentor pointing out ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Orleans, and that other Duchess, Louisa of Portsmouth, resulted in the secret treaty of Dover. We are not now concerned to examine the particulars of a transaction which even Charles himself did not dare to confide entirely to his ministers, familiar as the Cabal was with shameless deeds. It is enough for our present purpose to remember that, in return for a large annual subsidy and the promise of help should England again take up arms against her king, Charles bound ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... case his brother should die; but that, as it imported him to be on good terms with his brother, and to efface the notion he had of his connection with the Arminians, he made use of Vandenuse, one of his particular friends, and Barneveldt's son-in-law, to let the cabal know, that it was necessary for him to accommodate himself to his brother, that he might be better able to serve ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... prevent their opposing his election in case his brother should die, but that as it imported him to be on good terms with his brother, and to efface the notion he had of his connection with the Arminians, he made use of Vandermyle, one of his particular friends and Barnevelt's son-in-law, to let the cabal know that it was necessary for him to accommodate himself to his brother, that he might be better able to serve ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In a magnificent speech, which ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... the Duke of Anjou's request, was again arrested and carried off a prisoner "to the very room where, twenty-four years ago, Marshal Biron had been confined." For some time past "it had been current at court and throughout the kingdom that a great cabal was going on," says Richelieu in his Memoires, "and the cabalists said quite openly that under his ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he was not a dangerous enemy." If the cabalists had been ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... will do you some service. Where there are no opponents, there is no triumph. A liberal conspiracy, an illegal cabal, a struggle of any kind, will bring you ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... has made such a pennyworth of him, for the last twenty years and more, as Germany cannot match. [Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of Wurtemberg. Loaded with wealth, with so-called honors, she and hers, there go they, flaunting sky-high; none else admitted to more than the liberty of breathing in silence in this Duchy; —the poor Duke Eberhard Ludwig making no complaint; obedient as a ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... you mean? There has been a cabal against James from the first to make him lay aside his principles, and I cannot regret his refusal to submit to improper dictation, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the House of Commons Fall of Clarendon State of European Politics, and Ascendancy of France Character of Lewis XIV The Triple Alliance The Country Party Connection between Charles II. and France Views of Lewis with respect to England Treaty of Dover Nature of the English Cabinet The Cabal Shutting of the Exchequer War with the United Provinces, and their extreme Danger William, Prince of Orange Meeting of the Parliament; Declaration of Indulgence It is cancelled, and the Test Act passed The Cabal dissolved ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... achievements of his career. This is certainly far more true of Napoleon than of any other heroic personage; an affectionate awe has sometimes lifted him to heaven, a spiteful hate has often hurled him down to hell. Every nation, every party, faction, and cabal among his own and other peoples, has judged him from its own standpoint of self-interest and self-justification. Whatever chance there may be of reading the secrets of his life lies rather in a just consideration of the man in relation ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... wave that is to bear it down the stream of time. Mr. Godwin's person is not known, he is not pointed out in the street, his conversation is not courted, his opinions are not asked, he is at the head of no cabal, he belongs to no party in the State, he has no train of admirers, no one thinks it worth his while even to traduce and vilify him, he has scarcely friend or foe, the world make a point (as Goldsmith used to say) of taking no more notice of him than if such an individual had never existed; ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... community ought to have some share in its administration. Again, Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of individuals; and it seems both reasonable that each man should have a share in providing for his own security, and probable, that partiality and cabal should by this means be most effectually excluded. And again, To give each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest to that admirable idea of which we should never lose sight, the uncontrolled ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... some very interesting portraits. Full-length pictures of the members of the Cabal Ministry adorn the dining-room—all fine examples of Lely's brush; then there is a very large representation of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo mounted on his favourite charger "Copenhagen" by Lawrence; two "Romneys," one ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... with bayonets, to the Capitol they had won, bearing at last the tri-color we all love and honor, as the symbol of our homes and the hope of the world, and thought how more grandly, even in her ruin, Richmond stood in the light of its crowding stars, rather than the den of a desperate cabal, whose banner was known in no city nor sea, but as the ensign of corsairs, and hailed only by fustian peers, now rent in the grip of our eagle, and without a fane or an abiding-place. Let us go on, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... had been intrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign; forgetting that he had formerly thought his being deprived of a privilege, or honour, common to those of his rank, was the result of mere party cabal. He commanded his trusty aide-de-camp, Dominie Sampson, to read aloud the commission; and at the first words, "The king has been pleased to appoint"—"Pleased!" he exclaimed, in a transport of gratitude; "honest gentleman! I'm sure he cannot be ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... were not a few, and those too in high places. The imbecile Emperor became the willing centre of a cabal bent upon the destruction of the daring young minister; and, though the precautions of the latter prevented things from going that length, yet the constant plotting that went on served to neutralize all his efforts at administration, and to ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... Ships must have passed, & other powers in their Hands, made use of these Powers to defeat the Intentions of the people & succeeded; in short the Governor who for Art & Cunning as well as an inveterate hatred of the people was inferior to no one of the Cabal; both encouragd & provoked the people to destroy the Tea. By refusing to grant a Passport he held up to them the alternative of destroying the property of the East India Company or suffering that to ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... seems the more impolitic, when it must be clear to every student of the history of these times, that the unmanly cruelties inflicted on Baxter and others were, as Bishops Ward, Stillingfleet, and others saw at the time, part of the Popish scheme of the Cabal, to trick the Bishops and dignified Clergy into rendering themselves and the established Church odious to the public by laws, the execution of which the King, the Duke, Arlington, and the Popish priests directed towards the very last man that the Bishops ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... object as it is, and not as the old masters or the new masters have said it should be painted, to persevere in looking at truth and at nature without the smallest prejudice for tradition, this was the whole mystery and cabal of the P. R. B. They called themselves "preraphaelite," because they found in the wings of Lippi's angels, and the columbines of Perugino's gardens that loving and exact study of minute things which gave to them a sense of sincerity, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... usually allotted to the life of man, returned to Ireland, with the rank of Viceroy. During the ensuing seven years, he clung to power with all the tenacity of his youth, and all the policy of his prime; they were seven years of extraordinary sectarian panic and excitement—the years of the Cabal, the Popish plot, and the Exclusion Bill, in England—and of fanatical conspiracies and explosions almost ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Company had its birth, the blind Milton was dictating his message and the liberated Bunyan preached the spoken word, the iniquitous Cabal Ministry was forming in England, and Panama was sacked by Morgan the buccaneer. New York merchants of Manhattan met every Friday at noon on the bridge over the Broad Street Canal for barter, South Carolina ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... in rapid succession, during his Storm and Stress period, The Robbers, Fiesco, Cabal and Love, and the beginning of Don Carlos (finished in 1787). Between this time and his last period, which opens with Wallenstein, he devoted himself assiduously to the study of philosophy, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... harmless skirmishing of partisanship, dazzling the eye, but innocuous as the aurora borealis, demonstrations only too certain of coming evils receive but little attention in their earlier stages. Yet undoubtedly, if the laws applicable to conspiracy can in any way be evaded, we may see by the extensive cabal now organizing itself in England for aiding the Irish conspiracy to overthrow the Irish Protestant church, that we have but exchanged one form of agitation for a worse. Worse in what respect? Not as measured simply by the ruin it would cause—between ruin ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on mankind. We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed, a throne strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on their liberties, all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning King, from an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of strangers, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... Then he was eagerly asked if he believed in the reality of this Poe. Charles began to suspect the sanity of his visitor. "Because," added Meryon, "there is a society of litterateurs, very clever, very powerful, and knowing all the ropes." His reasons for suspecting a cabal formed against him under the guise of Poe's name were these: The Murders in the Rue Morgue. "I made a design of the Morgue—an orang-outang. I have been often compared to a monkey. This orang-outang assassinated two women, a ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... which the text attributes to the rivals of Domenichino is not at all exaggerated. There did really exist a so-called "Cabal of Naples," consisting chiefly of the painters Corenzio, Ribera, and Caracciolo, who leagued together to shut out all competition from other artists; and their persecution of the Bolognese Domenichino is well known. Often ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... their worth, so sure the great May sell their favour at too dear a rate; When merit pines, while clamour is preferr'd, And long attachment waits among the herd; When no distinction, where distinction 's due, Marks from the many the superior few; When strong cabal constrains them to be just, And makes them give at last—because they must; What hopes that men of real worth should prize, What neither friendship gives, nor merit buys? The man who justly o'er the whole presides, His well-weigh'd choice ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... of characters at the centre of the play are on one hand, the ruling cabal, that is the King, his Italian Queen and their supporters, including the Italian Malateste and on the other a number of disenchanted Spanish noblemen who are in sympathy with the King's former betrothed lover, ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... constitutional maxim, that the King might appoint one of his footmen, or one of your footmen, for Minister; and that he ought to be, and that he would be, as well followed as the first name for rank or wisdom in the nation. Thus Parliament was to look on, as if perfectly unconcerned while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted in the place of a ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... the army formed themselves into a cabal, and held their first meeting to seize on the king's person, and take him into their custody from Holmby, the 28th of April 1647; the same day, 1660, the Parliament voted the agitators to be taken into custody, and committed as many of them as could ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... sat, and who was indeed laying himself out with deep art to captivate him, and take his mind, as it were, by storm, now with the boldest and most daring paradoxes; now with bursts of eloquent invective against the oppression and aristocratic insolence of the cabal, which by his shewing governed Rome; and now with sarcasm and pungent wit, that he saw but little of the course, which he had come ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... in which all parties agreed was to backbite the manager, and cabal against his regulations. This, however, I have since discovered to be a common trait of human nature, and to take place in all communities. It would seem to be the main business of man to repine at government. In all situations of life into which I have looked, I have found mankind divided into ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... understand and believe, pretty much the same in more modern institutions for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. The end is lost in the means: rules take place of nature and genius; cabal and bustle, and struggle for rank and precedence, supersede the study and the love of art. A Royal Academy is a kind of hospital and infirmary for the obliquities of taste and ingenuity—a receptacle where enthusiasm and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... Clarendon was dismissed from office. The discord between the crown and Parliament paralyzed the nation, and the wastefulness of Charles kept him always poor. By the treaty of Dover in 1670 he became a pensioner of Louis XIV. The Cabal followed, probably the worst ministry England ever saw; and in 1672, at Clifford's suggestion, the exchequer was closed and the debt repudiated to provide funds for the second Dutch war. In March fighting began, and the tremendous battles with ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... reason led Macaulay's mind to the incest in the Oedipus Rex—is perhaps the best comedy of situation in the piece. But the scene of defamation between the Froths and Brisk is notable as (with the Cabal idea in The Way of the World) the inspiration of the Scandal Scenes in Sheridan's play. When we remember that less than two years were gone since the production of The Old Bachelor, the improvement in Congreve is remarkable. Almost his only concession to the groundlings is the star-gazing ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... on and done his duty, like General Grant, in the station to which he was assigned, he might have risen much higher. As it was, he never did. This man made the discovery of the War Department order, and soon there was a cabal which was constantly giving out that they were independent of my authority and could shake themselves free at any moment. At first, we did not know what this meant, but it soon leaked out, though they intended to keep it secret. ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... Brandywine and Germantown. He had a grudge against Washington, as Charles Lee had. He thought he could get on better if Washington were out of the way. So he busied himself in organizing a kind of conspiracy against Washington, which came to be known as the "Conway Cabal." The purpose was to put forward Gates to supersede Washington, as he had lately superseded the noble Schuyler. Gates, of course, lent himself heartily to the scheme; such intrigues were what he ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... to the weary routine of court life: "The princesses who have not attended the hunt will come in, followed by their cabal, and wait the return of the king in my apartment in order to go to dinner. The hunters will come in a crowd, and will relate the whole history of their day's sport, without sparing us a single detail. They will then go to dinner. Madame de Dangeau will challenge me, with a yawn, to a game ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... in my last about the four Princes, I now know not to be true with respect to the Duke of Gloucester, who has held aloof from all cabal with them, and even declared in the House of Lords that ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... the toil and anxiety imposed upon Mr. Adams by this effort to censure and disgrace him, the scheme, already referred to, for displacing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on (p. 289) Foreign Affairs had been actively prosecuted. He was notified that the Southern members had formed a cabal for removing him and putting Caleb Cushing in his place. The plan was, however, temporarily checked, and so soon as Mr. Adams had triumphed in the House the four Southern members of the committee sent to the House ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... would soon yield to the evidence of contradictory facts. At home that impression has been industriously propagated to a limited extent, partly by the legitimate attacks of political opponents, and partly by a little cabal within our own ranks. These parties wanted to attack me, and were obliged to accuse me of something. They could not charge me with failure, because we had succeeded in all our undertakings, whether in Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Syria, China, or elsewhere; they could not charge me with having ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... the same time, to promote his plans, resolved to despatch Bussi to his duchy of Alencon, in order to discipline such troops as he should find there. My brother's amiable qualities excited the jealousy of Maugiron and the rest of his cabal about the King's person, and their dislike for Bussi was not so much on his own account as because he was strongly attached to my brother. The slights and disrespect shown to my brother were remarked by every one at Court; but his prudence, and the patience ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... 1713. From the exordium, Young appears to have spent some time on the composition of it. While other bards "with Britain's hero set their souls on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. Marlborough HAD BEEN considered by Britain as her HERO; but, when the "Last Day" was published, female cabal had blasted for a time the laurels of Blenheim. This serious poem was finished by Young as early as 1710, before he was thirty; for part of it is printed in the Tatler. It was inscribed to the queen, in a dedication, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... it the Prime Minister, or the Cabinet, or Parliament, or the Civil Service? Is it the Trade Union Congress, or the Federation of British Industries, or does any one suppose that it is some hidden cabal of big business interests? No, there is no co-ordinator. There is no human brain or organisation responsible for fitting together this vast jig-saw puzzle; and, that being so, I say that what should really excite ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... tale. He professes to have seen nothing peculiar in Romeo's dress, save its display of fine diamonds, and to have admired the whole interpretation. The attitude of the audience he attributes to a hostile cabal. John R. and Hunter H. Robinson, in their memoir of Romeo Coates, echo Mr. Pryse Gordon's tale. They would have done well to weigh their ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... second son. He moreover observed, that, in consequence of this information, he no sooner heard of Mr. Pickle's death, which happened at the club, than he went directly with a lawyer to his house, before any cabal or conspiracy could be formed against the rightful heir; and, in presence of witnesses provided for the purpose, sealed up all the papers of the deceased, after the widow had, in the first transports ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Bengal. "Rapacity, luxury, and the spirit of insubordination," says a late writer, "spread from the civil service to the officers of the army, and from the officers to the soldiers. The evil continued to grow till every messroom became the seat of conspiracy and cabal, and till the Sepoys could only be kept in order by wholesale executions." Individuals were enriched, but the public treasury was empty, and the government had to face the dangers of disordered finances, when there was war on the frontiers and disaffection in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... of Congress plotted during 1777 to have Washington removed from the command of the army. For an account of this Conway Cabal read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... that the king might appoint one of his footmen, or one of your footmen for minister; and that he ought to be, and that he would be, as well followed as the first name for rank or wisdom in the nation. Thus Parliament was to look on as if perfectly unconcerned, while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted in the place ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... power Nero's adolescence in crime; the young tiger has grace and strength, but the instinct of blood needs only to be awakened within him. Agrippine is a superb incarnation of womanly ambition, a Roman sister of Athalie. The play was at first coldly received; Corneille and his cabal did not spare their censures. In a preface Racine struck back, but afterwards repented of his bitter words and withdrew them. The critics, as he says in a later preface, disappeared; the piece remained. His ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... member of the club: "I do not like William Robinson. His hand is against every man"; but it is doubtful if Robinson ever published so hard a criticism of any person, and certainly none so unjust. Emerson without being aware of it was strongly influenced by a cabal for the overthrow of Robinson, in which General Butler took a leading hand. Robinson was clerk of the State Senate, and could not afford to lose his position; afterwards, when he did lose it, he fell sick and died. He preferred truth-telling and poverty to ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... famous for his writings and his amours with Eloisa, ranks amongst the Heretics for opinions concerning the Trinity! His superior genius probably made him appear so culpable in the eyes of his enemies. The cabal formed against him disturbed the earlier part of his life with a thousand persecutions, till at length they persuaded Bernard, his old friend, but who had now turned saint, that poor Abelard was what their malice described him to be. Bernard, inflamed against him, condemned ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... purchase her, they had brought her on to Chili, where the Government took her and received her former owners into its service. These officers, together with Captain Worcester, a North American, got up a cabal, the object of which was to bring about a divided command between myself and Admiral Blanco, or, as they expressed it—"two commodores and no Cochrane." Finding that Admiral Blanco would not listen to this, they persuaded one or two of the inferior ministers—whose jealousy it ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... served under Charles I., and accompanied Charles II. in his exile; a prominent member of the famous Cabal; being impeached when in office, lost favour and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the commentator on Mars—not the lyrical public announcer, but the industrial economist who served the private channel—picked up in mid-word: "... early to have much data on the science and material resources this dead civilization possessed, but I recommend that every Corporation in Induscomm Cabal should place a technical party at Mars Equatorial as soon as possible. We shall now key in with the public spacecast. Note the texture and color range of the adornments and artifacts. I venture that these items will prove popular ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro

... his advice, as the direction of some supernatural intelligence. But, now that he professed himself one of the faculty, and might be supposed to have refreshed his memory, and reinforced his knowledge for the occasion, he was as much overlooked as any other physician unsupported by interest or cabal; or, at least, the notice he attracted was not at all to the advantage of his character, because it wholly regarded the decline of his fortune, which is a never-failing ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... Valley Forge marks the darkest period of the war. It was a season of discouragement, when mean spirits grew bold. Some officers of the army formed a plot, called from one of them the "Conway cabal," to displace Washington and put Gates in command. The country people, tempted by British gold, sent their provisions into Philadelphia and not to Valley Forge. There the suffering of the half-clad, half-fed, ill-housed patriots ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... short, under various titles, of seventeen states, each one of which, although not republican, possessed constitutions as sacred as, and much more ancient than, the Crown. The resistance to the absolutism of Granvelle and Philip was, therefore, logical, legal, constitutional. It was no cabal, no secret league, as the Cardinal had the effrontery to term it, but a legitimate exercise of powers which belonged of old to those who wielded them, and which only ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... list of terrific tragedies. One princess is executed for adultery with her stepson (1425); a bastard's bastard tries to seize the throne, and is put to death with all his kin (1493); a wife is poisoned by her husband to prevent her poisoning him (1493); two brothers cabal against the legitimate heads of the house, and are imprisoned for life (1506). Such was the labyrinth of plot and counterplot, of force repelled by violence, in which the princes praised by Ariosto and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... manage to postpone the nuptial blessing till the 11th, when it is hoped that the documents will have come back again. But even in this case, the Ambassador Extraordinary will need all the firmness of his character to overrule this cabal which brings uneasiness to the Emperor's family and uses the Archbishop as a tool. I have done everything that I could to impress upon the Minister how much the present state of affairs compromises the dignity of our court. He has ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... on the popular intelligence, big vessels to launch on streams running to shallows. The Tartuffe hove into view as an enemy's vessel; it offended, not Dieu mais les devots, as the Prince de Conde explained the cabal raised against it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... about the traitors in our midst—the sinister cabal of pinko liberals and moderate conservatives that have undermined ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... Writing about the affairs of Florida at this time, Mr. Adams observed: "With these concerns, political, personal, and electioneering intrigues are mingling themselves, with increasing heat and violence. This government is assuming daily, more and more, a character of cabal and preparation, not for the next presidential election, but for the one after, that is working and counterworking, with many of the worst features of elective monarchies. Jackson has made for himself a multitude of friends, and ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... be traced to several causes: to the fact that the puritan party proper, who supported him, the 'sober men' mentioned by Baxter 'that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite,' had not power to resist the fanatic cabal of army chiefs: to the necessity he was under of protecting some justly-odious confederates of Oliver: his own want of ability or energy to govern,—a point fully recognized during Oliver's supremacy; and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... rash youth and subtle women of discreeter years, and passions shamefully inflamed and purposes wickedly egged on. We say nothing of all this; nor will we dwell upon it. Mrs. Dallington Vere assuredly was no slight sufferer. But she conquered the cabal that was formed against her, for the dandies were her friends, and gallantly supported her through a trial under which some women would have sunk. As it was, at the end of the season she did travel, but all is now forgotten; and Hill Street, Berkeley ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... roles, and the absence of a good tenor part. Still a third comic opera, the "Carnaval de Venise" saw the light the same season, which was written in large measure to show the marvelous flexibility of Mme. Cabal's voice. Very few singers have been able to sing the role of Sylvia, who warbles a violin concerto from beginning to end, under the title of an "Ariette ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... was as calm as ever, though peace seemed to bask on San Mateo and the broad mesa and lofty mountain range, events were rapidly shaping themselves to bring a thunder crash of contending forces. Not Weir, not even the little evil cabal plotting so desperately against him, guessed the scope and power of the passions to ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... could complete his financial reforms, he was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of Sunderland, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared to the Whigs by his steady attachment to their principles. He had expected, and probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the administration. When disappointed, he bent all his energies to undermine ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... evidencing his sense of former services rendered at a time of his greatest extremity. But the main cause lay much deeper, and is connected with what Lord Macaulay justly styles "one of the worst acts of one of the worst governments that England has ever seen"—that of the Cabal. Our national honour was at its lowest ebb. Charles had just concluded the profligate Treaty of Dover, by which, in return for the "protection" he sought from the French king, he declared himself a Roman ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... appears to have spent some time on the composition of it. While other bards "with Britain's hero set their souls on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. Marlborough had been considered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Last Day was published, female cabal had blasted, for a time, the laurels of Blenheim. This serious poem was finished by Young as early as 1710, before he was thirty; for part of it is printed in the Tatler[188] It was inscribed to the queen, in a dedication, which, for some ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... offenders were three Third form girls, Norma Bradley, Biddy Adams, and Daisy Donovan, who, with those former firebrands Winnie Osborne and Joyce Colman, had formed a kind of Cabal, whose object seemed to be to find out how ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... a great party to govern Great Britain—no clique, no faction, no cabal, can govern the forty millions of people who live in this island. It takes a vast concentration of forces to make a governing instrument. You have now got a Radical and democratic governing instrument, and if this Administration ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... Washington had to contend with a conspiracy that was directed against him by some of his most trusted officers, who desired to place General Gates in supreme command of the American Army. This conspiracy was called the Conway Cabal, because the chief plotter was an Irishman named General Thomas Conway. But the result of this base attempt was added power and glory for Washington, for Congress was fortunately unaffected by the representations ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter-boxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating the story—and such a ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in process of time, become so thoroughly domesticated that their translation, or the use of an awkward equivalent, would be a greater mark of pedantry than the use of the foreign words. The proper use of such terms as fiat, palladium, cabal, quorum, omnibus, antique, artiste, coquette, ennui, physique, regime, tableau, amateur, cannot be censured on the ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... familiar as that of one of the greatest roysterers and most courtly libertines of the early days of Louis XIV., as well as that of a rabid anti-cardinalist and frondeur, and one of the earliest of that new cabal of nobility known as the petits-maitres, whose leader the Prince de Conde was destined to become a few years later. He was a man of about my own age, that is to say, between thirty-two and thirty-three, and of my own frame, tall, spare, and active. On his florid, debonnair countenance was stamped ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... than Niles Slime-born Race. Such was the Brave Achitophel; a Mind, (If but the Heart and Face were of a kind) So far from being by one base Thought deprav'd, That sure half ten such Souls had Sodom sav'd. Here Baals Cabal Achitophel survey'd, And dasht with wonder, half despairing said, Is this the Hand that Absolon must Crown, The Founder of his Temples, Palace, Throne? This, This the mighty Convert we must make? Gods, h'has a Soul not all our ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... great innovation in a city where tea, as yet, was sold only by druggists as a remedy for indigestion. The flower of Angoumoisin aristocracy was summoned to hear Lucien read his great work. Louise had hidden all the difficulties from her friend, but she let fall a few words touching the social cabal formed against him; she would not have him ignorant of the perils besetting his career as a man of genius, nor of the obstacles insurmountable to weaklings. She drew a lesson from the recent victory. Her white hands ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... and third Consuls made a suggestion; and if it were rejected, one of the two whom they thereupon named must be elected by the Senate. The three legislative bodies lost practically all their powers, those of the Corps Legislatif going to the Senate, those of the Council of State to an official Cabal formed out of it; while the Tribunate was forced to debate secretly in five sections, where, as Bonaparte observed, they ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... education, which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained: I mean a spirit and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which I have never, in one instance, seen united with a capacity for sound ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... public opinion, while, in general, narrow bounds were set to the bloodthirsty vengeance of the Cavaliers. He lived to witness the actual turn of the tide. Six years before his death the Triple Alliance was formed, and in the year of his death the Cabal Ministry fell. At worst, his case would have been that of a soldier killed in an unfortunate crisis of a battle which in the end was won, but he fell, if not with the shout of victory in his ears, with the inspiring signs of a general advance around ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... events drift now. They had passed beyond her control. Perhaps a policy of masterly inactivity might rescue her from the tornado which had swept her off her feet. In any case, she must fight her own battles, irrespective of the cabal entered into in Paris. Captain James Devar was an impossible ally; the French Count was a negligible quantity when compared with an English viscount whose ancestry threw back to the Conquest and whose estates covered half ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... The whole cabal of his enemies consulted together in what manner they should vent their resentment against him; and it was agreed that they should treat him with indifference and neglect, till they should arrive in France; and when there, they should contrive to render his courage suspected, and by putting ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... I was running away,' interrupted Maulevrier, 'although the very fact of my return ought to prove to every one that I am able to meet and face this cabal.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... Grace, you may call it vengeance—vengeance on the cabal of councillors, who have ever countermined you, in spite of your wit and your interest with the King.—Vengeance on Arlington, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... de Vienne," I., 292, August 30, 1795).—Moniteur, XXV., 518, 551. (Session of Fructidor 3.) The first idea of the commission of Eleven was to have the Convention itself choose the two-thirds. "Its opponents took advantage of the public outcry and broke off this plan.... of the Girondist cabal." Louvet, Fructidor 3, mounted three times into the tribune to support this project, still more scandalous than the other. "Eh, what electoral assembly could be better than yours! You all know each other well." Louvet adds this significant expression: "The armies also will ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... be done, Christopher," said Marianne, imploringly. "Do not leave your enemies time to cabal against you; snatch the victory from them before ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... there present knew. What strange cabal she invoked is still a mystery. Be that as it may, eyes which had seemed closed forever, opened. Lips white, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... the cabal which, during forty years, the Prince had always had to struggle with in his Army, were plotting mischief on him, they used to take advantage of the evening time, when his spirits, brisk enough in the morning, were jaded by the fatigues of the day. It was ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and cabal on behalf of Harold, which has led to the determination of the principal chiefs, and which ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... trees. The flag of the United States waves in the centre, surrounded by English colours, and medals hung to the walls. They are presented by the Indians to their Father, the agent, as a proof that they abjure all cabal or alliance with the English. Pipes, or calumets and other little Indian presents, offered by the various tribes as pledges of their friendship, decorate the walls and give a remarkable and characteristic air to the room." The dignitaries of the post are seated about a table and the braves recline ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... of the Jameson fiasco certainly inspired no confidence in the judgment of any one concerned. That his intentions were of the best, and that he had the good of the Empire at heart, may be freely granted; but that these motives should lead him to cabal against, and even to threaten, the military governor, or that he should attempt to force Lord Roberts's hand in a military operation, was most deplorable. Every credit may be given to him for all his aid to the military—he gave with a good grace what the garrison would ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of his own party, but Mr. Dana was defeated. In 1876 he was nominated by President Grant minister to England, but his nomination was not confirmed by the Senate, for his nomination had been made without consulting the Senatorial cabal and also he had bitter enemies, who carried on a warfare against him upon terms which he ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... head them in the most desperate attacks ever made, under the forms of the Constitution, on any English administration; and they selected the minister who had the deepest share in the worst acts of the Court, the soul of the Cabal, the counsellor who had shut up the Exchequer and urged on the Dutch war. The whole political drama was of the same cast. No unity of plan, no decent propriety of character and costume, could be found in that wild and monstrous harlequinade. The whole was made ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cabal of witches detected at Malmsbury. They ere examined by Sir James Long of Draycot-Cerne, and by him committed to Salisbury Gaol. I think there were seven or eight old women hanged. There were odd things sworne against them, as the strange manner of the dyeing of H. Denny's horse, and of ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you; last night was one of their cabal-nights: they have 'em three times a week and meet by turns at one another's apartments, where they come together like the coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... principle had been well established and well executed, a much greater inconveniency grew out of the reform than that which had attended the old abuse: for if tumult and disorder be lessened by reducing the number of proprietors, private cabal and intrigue are facilitated at least in an equal degree; and it is cabal and corruption, rather than disorder and confusion, that was most to be dreaded in transacting the affairs of India. Whilst the votes of the smaller proprietors continued, a door was left open for the public ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called the "North American Review." The poem just cited is especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly to ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various



Words linked to "Cabal" :   plot, conspiracy, coconspire, pack, conjure, conspire, junto, secret plan, politics, camarilla, political science, Gunpowder Plot, ingroup, machinate, inner circle, government, coterie, camp, complot



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