The Wasp, 1918 · page 216 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 216: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a **fictional narrative passage** rather than a political cartoon. The text describes Captain Trimmer, a pirate operating off Trinidad, and his seizure of the French-Canadian schooner *Le Diable* ("The Devil"). The passage seems to be part of a serialized adventure story in *The Wasp*, a 19th-century American satirical magazine. It references privateering during a conflict between France and England (likely the Napoleonic Wars era), when nations sanctioned raiders to attack enemy shipping. The satirical angle appears to be **mocking romantic notions of piracy and privateering**—portraying Trimmer's crew as "reckless rascals" motivated purely by profit, while the Canadian captain is characterized as simultaneously serving France and "filling his pockets." This undercuts any heroic framing of such ventures. Without seeing accompanying illustrations or more context about *The Wasp's* editorial stance, the specific contemporary political targets remain unclear.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP 207 Captain Trimmer had recovered his old mastery over his uncertain and whimsical gentle- men of fortune by a series of splendid captures, murders, robberies, and scuttlings off the coast of Trinidad. Every gentleman of his company was now well along on the road to wealth. By discreet but constant recruiting from the crews of his prizes, he had built up his company to a selected force of one hundied and twenty of the hardest and most reckless rascals unhanged. Trimmer’s affairs were in this prosperous condition when he boarded the schooner Le Diable on a misty night and took her, with no damage to either of the vessels, but with much _ loss of life on the part of Le Diable’s crew. The master and owner of the schooner, who had died suddenly and violently, had been a Canadian of noble blood and a craving for © profitable adventure. As his mother country was at war with England, he had built and manned Le Diable on the St. Lawrence, and had set out to serve France with one hand and fill his pockets with the other. He had met with _ successes off Newfoundland, off New England, off the Carolinas, the Bahamas, and Barbuda. Off Antigua he had been chased by an English _ sloop-of-war, but had managed to drop her, © Comichooks.com