Note 54 — EDGAR, 74
Reading edition
Misappropriation of government stores (Smyth, Sailors’ Word-Book). Cf. N.R.S. xxviii. 48. A writer in Notes and Queries (X. ii. 397) refers the term to the Dutch ‘te kaap varen’ = to go a-privateering (N.E.D., s.v. Cape); a not improbable derivation.