League of Armed Neutrality refers to one of two alliances of European naval powers (1780-1783 and 1800-1801), both intended to protect neutral shipping against the British Royal Navy's wartime policy of unlimited search of neutral shipping for French contraband. Accounts of the times also refer to these alliances simply as the Armed Neutrality.
- First League of Armed Neutrality, existed from 1780 to 1783 during the American War of Independence.
- Second League of Armed Neutrality, existed from 1800 to 1801 during the Napoleonic Wars
- Third League of Armed Neutrality, a proposed but never adopted alliance between Britain and France during the American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words league, armed and/or neutrality:
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner;
Under it wisdom stands, and I alone
Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone
Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost
In the confusion of its night-dark folds,
Can hear the armed man speak.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)