Filibuster. The river Vly in Holland is said to have furnished the name fly boat in English, in Spanish flibote, or by a softening of the first syllable filibote, to a sort of small fast-sailing vessel of about 100 tons burden, which in the 17th century held in point of sailing qualities the place since occupied by the Baltimore clippers. The buccaneers of the West Indies, who began their depredations against Spanish commerce in mere row boats, as they acquired the means for a more formidable outfit, selected these vessels as the sort of craft best suited to their purpose. (See Buccaneer.) Hence they became known in French as flibustiers, and in Spanish as filibusteros, an appellation gradually extended in those languages to any kind of pirates. The term filibuster has recently been introduced into the English language-its use commencing in New Orleans, but thence rapidly spreading wherever English is spoken-as a designation for certain adventurers who, after the termination of the war between Mexico and the United States, busied themselves with setting on foot within the United States military expeditions designed to operate in the Spanish American countries to the south of us.

Of these the expeditions under William Walker to Nicaragua were the most noted.-Filibustering is a cant term much used of late years in the legislative assem-blies of the United States to designate the employment of parliamentary tactics to defeat a measure by raising frivolous questions of order, calls of the house, motions to adjourn, etc, in order to weary out the opposite party, or to gain time.