How ill-becoming is it in thy sex,
To triumph like an Amazonian trull
Upon their woes whom fortune captivates.--Shakspeare.
They stand firm, keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturb them.--Locke.
The unnatural brethren who sold their brother into captivity are now about to be captivated themselves, and the binder himself to be bound in turn.--Dr. Adam Clarke, Reflec. 4th Genesis.
The Edinburgh Review, in its notice of the American Mineralogical Journal, published in New York in 1810, after speaking of other words, says, "Other examples, proving the alteration to which our language has been exposed, chiefly by the introduction of gallicisms, may be noticed in the rest of this Journal, resembling expressions found in American newspapers, where for a "ship taken," we read of "a ship captivated!"
In his remarks on this word, Mr. Pickering says it was new to him, and that he had never seen it in the newspapers. Subsequently, however, he discovered it in two or three of our authors. It cannot be said to be in use among writers at the present day. It is well known that Congress, in adopting the Declaration of Independence prepared by Mr. Jefferson, omitted certain passages contained in the original draft. Among these was the omission of the paragraph relating to the slave trade:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to more miserable death in transportation thither.
In noticing the above passage, Lord Brougham says, The word "captivating" will be reckoned an Americanism (as the Greeks used to say of their colonists a Solæcism). But it has undoubted English authority--Locke among others.--Statesmen of George III.
Twenty-three people were killed in this surprisal, and twenty-nine were captivated.--Belknap, Hist. New Hampshire, Vol I. ch. 10.
The singularly interesting event of captivating a second Royal army (Lord Cornwallis's) produced strong emotions.--Ramsay, History American Revolution, Vol. II. p. 274.