Note 24 — EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I.
Henry Yule translation
The Catalan Admiral Roger de Loria, advancing at daybreak to attack the Provençal Fleet of Charles of Naples (1283) in the harbour of Malta, “did a thing which should be reckoned to him rather as an act of madness,” says Muntaner, “than of reason. He said, ‘God forbid that I should attack them, all asleep as they are! Let the trumpets and nacaires sound to awaken them, and I will tarry till they be ready for action. No man shall have it to say, if I beat them, that it was by catching them asleep.’” (
Munt.
p. 287.) It is what Nelson might have done!
The Turkish admiral Sidi ’Ali, about to engage a Portuguese squadron in the Straits of Hormuz, in 1553, describes the Franks as “dressing their vessels with flags and coming on.” (J. As. ix. 70.)