Note 29 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
This, the old Grecian signal to engage, in 1292 "signified certain death and mortal strife to all sailors everywhere". In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was constantly used as an emblem of "Defiance" and "No Quarter". The mutineers at the Nore hoisted it in 1797, as did the Paris Communists in 1871.