"Flotilla" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... represented current naval opinion we cannot precisely tell, but we know that Boteler was an officer held in high enough esteem to receive the command of the landing flotilla at Cadiz, and to be described as 'an able and experienced sea captain.' But whatever tendency there may have been to tactical progress under Buckingham's inspiring personality, it must have been smothered by the lamentable ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... sun. There is little sea, for we are in among the islands which check and subdue the violence of the waves. At noon we glide in between a small holm and the island into the excellent and roomy harbour of Hong Kong, well sheltered on all sides from wind and waves. A flotilla of steam launches comes out to meet us as we glide slowly among innumerable vessels to our anchorage and buoys. Here flutter in the wind the flags of all commercial nations; the English, Chinese, Japanese, American, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... And, in fact, Ribas did remember it! At a later period, having become a Russian admiral, he was intrusted with the command of the flotilla which was to descend the Danube to aid in the capture of Kilia and Ismail. But during the investment of Ismail (December 21, 1790), Ribas concealed himself among the reeds on the bank of the Danube, and did not reappear until the danger was over and he could in safety ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... was to be made; so Wallis prepared to repel it. Soon after, the bay was crowded with canoes as they paddled straight and swift toward the ship. At once the great guns opened with terrible effect, and so tremendous a fire was kept up that the entire flotilla was almost instantly dispersed. Many of the canoes were run ashore and deserted; others fled round the point, and the savages took to the woods. Into these the fire was then directed, and the natives, who doubtless imagined that no danger could penetrate from such a distance into the heart ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... his age. Whatever was the fact as to those few days, he was not absent long. The serious division between the executive in France and the new Assembly came to light in an ugly circumstance which occurred in March. On the eighteenth a French flotilla unexpectedly appeared off St. Florent. It was commanded by Rully, an ardent royalist, who had long been employed in Corsica. His secret instructions were to embark the French troops, and to leave ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... were contemplating this, off across the lake they saw lights advancing toward them. They heard shouts, too, and they shouted in answer, and it was not long before they had guided a flotilla of small boats toward them. This proved to be a rescuing party organized and headed by the anxious Mr. Ford and old Dr. Lyman, who were almost distracted until they made doubly certain that every lad was safe and ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... of papers while here, and were much pleased to learn of the continued progress of our arms, particularly in the West. The taking of Fort Pillow, the evacuation of Memphis and Corinth, with the destruction of the rebel flotilla on the Mississippi, all came out in one paper; and the editor complained that he had been restrained from publishing this by the government for more than two weeks ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes. Again the canoes were launched and the wild flotilla glided on its way, now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now among the devious channels of the Narrows, beset with woody islets where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the cedar,— till they neared that ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... were reduced almost to their last extremity, a carrier pigeon was seen flying into the beleaguered city, and it brought the joyful news that the Prince of Orange was coming to their deliverance, having cut the dykes and flooded the country in order that his flotilla of 200 boats laden with provision might reach them. But the water did not rise high enough, the flotilla got stranded, and the poor starving people could see the supplies in the distance, but could not get at them, and it seemed so hard ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... by Admiral Allyn, namely, that, being light of coal, they rode high in the sea and rolled heavily. Unfortunately, the Germans had thirty battleships to seventeen and this disparity was presently increased when the flotilla of German destroyers, about eighty, after vanquishing their opponents, swarmed against the hardpressed American line, attacking from the port quarter under the lead of the four battle-cruisers so that the valiant seventeen ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... and 12 cm. Creuzot siege guns, and 7.5 cm. Creuzot quick-firing guns; total of all description, 1154. Defensive works were constructed at various strategical points near the frontier and elsewhere, and at Varna and Burgas. The naval force consisted of a flotilla stationed at Rustchuk and Varna, where a canal connects Lake Devno with the sea. It was composed in 1905 of 1 prince's yacht, 1 armoured cruiser, 3 gunboats, 3 torpedo boats and 10 other small vessels, with a complement of 107 officers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... neighbourhood of Castle Garden, was a sheltered place popularly known as the "Millionaires' Basin," being the favourite anchorage of the private yachts of the "Wall Street flotilla." At this time of the year most of the great men had already moved out to their country places, and those of them who lived on the Hudson or up the Sound would come to their offices in vessels of every size, from racing motor-boats to huge private ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... of the lake, and as we emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons. Instantly a thunderous ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... better to architectural treatment than water-gates and stairways. They would become one of the features of the Embankment. On the river itself the City Companies would once more launch their State barges, and the Houses of Parliament would have a flotilla of decorative steam or electric launches. Permanent moorings, now difficult to maintain near the bank on account of the runaway tide, would hold boats, launches, and single-handed sailing yachts. No ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... on the morning of the landing: a bright, and soon fierce, sun rose on a cloudless sky. At a given signal the boats were lowered—a nearly countless flotilla; the troops went overboard silently and with admirable despatch, and all again, by signal, started in one long perfect line for the shore. Within an hour the boats were beached, the troops sprang eagerly to land, and the invasion was ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... forces on the 22d of February." He especially directed that the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and the naval force in the Gulf of Mexico be ready for a movement on that day. The order did not mean what was stated on its face. It was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... says he, "who is always present in the most arduous enterprises, with the assistance of some other barges, boarded and carried two of the enemy's gun-boats, and a barge-launch belonging to some of their ships of war, with the commandant of the flotilla. Rear-Admiral Nelson's actions speak for themselves; any praise of mine would fall very ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... legionaries and, after a solemn mass, distributes the insignia under the dome of the Invalides in the presence of the empress and the court; and again one month later, August 16, 1804, on the anniversary of the Emperor's birth, in the camp at Boulogne, facing the ocean and in full view of the flotilla assembled to conquer England, before one hundred thousand spectators and the entire army, to the roll of eighteen hundred drums. No ceremony, probably, was ever more exciting. The eminent surgeon, Larrey, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... curious flotilla bears down upon us. There is one boat, two or three canoes; but the bulk of the craft are simply wooden frames,—flat-bottomed structures, made from shipping-cases or lard-boxes, with triangular ends. In these sit naked ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... give our attention to the Mississippi. Within an hour and a quarter of the time the leading vessel passed the forts, all had reached a safe point above, where they engaged in a furious fight with the Confederate flotilla, the smaller members of which were ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... last boat of the great flotilla had disappeared from the view of those left at Regos, Inga and Rinkitink prepared to leave the island themselves. The boy was anxious to overtake the boat of King Gos, if possible, and Rinkitink had no desire to remain ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... dropped from the perpendicular to the horizontal, and swept the water as though seeking something. It was not long before the darting rays of one of the searchlights fell across the track of the British flotilla. Instantly from all three points converging flashes were concentrated upon it, revealing the outline of every ship with ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... brought out the euphemism with the utmost suavity. "I have made up my mind not to ignore the indignity to which Russia was subjected last year by Japan, but to inflict upon it such punishment as I find it in my power to compass. It was my intention to build a flotilla here, but owing to the diseased condition and reduced numbers of the employees, that was impossible, and I shall be obliged to content myself with the Juno and the Avos, whose keel, as you know, was laid in November, and is no ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', an' I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, an' the temple-bells they say: "Come you back, you British soldier: come you back to Mandalay!" Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old flotilla lay: Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay? On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... their voices singularly crisp and clear across the waters. Beyond her and still abreast was another great ship, the surging army upon her decks reduced to a brown mass in the distance. And far off on either side of this flotilla of three, and before it and behind it, was a sprightly little destroyer, moving this way and that, like a ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... British expedition in China resumed hostilities. Commodore Elliot with five gunboats and a host of small boats destroyed a fleet of forty armed junks. Next an attack was delivered on the Chinese headquarters at Fatshan. A flotilla of English small boats cut their way through the long line of war junks, and a landing party under Commodore Harry Keppel attacked the main position. The Commodore's boat was sunk and several others had to be abandoned. A ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... castle to spend the night. He gave his instructions to the bailiff on the day of his arrival; the next morning he got up early, entered the carriage, and drove to the Danube to inspect his cargo ships. Everything was in order. Our Herr Johann Fabula had been appointed overseer of the whole flotilla: there was nothing for him to do. "Our gracious master can go ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... entered the Mexican territory than fighting began. He speedily captured the town of Tezcuco, which was situated at twenty miles' distance, upon the edge of the great central lake, that lake upon whose waters the Spaniards were to see an imposing flotilla floating three months later. At this time a fresh conspiracy, which had for its object the assassination of Cortes and his principal officers, was discovered, and the chief culprit executed. At this moment fate seemed in every way to smile upon Cortes; ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... disappeared, numbers of boats crossed over the Haarlem lake from Leyden and managed to carry supplies of food into the town, and resistance might have been indefinitely prolonged had not Bossu put a stop to all intercourse between Haarlem and the outside world by convoying a flotilla of armed vessels from the Y into the lake. Surrender was now only a question of time. On July 11,1573, after a relieving force of 4000 men, sent by Orange, had been utterly defeated, and the inhabitants were perishing by famine, Toledo ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... When sufficiently refreshed in this cool bower, we ventured once more into the fierce light of the open river, and two miles below shot into the broader and more inviting Massac Creek (928 miles), just as, of old, George Rogers Clark did with his little flotilla, when en route to capture Kaskaskia. Clark, in his Journal written long after the event, said that this creek is a mile above Fort Massac; his memory failed him—as a matter of fact, the steep, low hill of iron-stained gravel and clay, on which the old stronghold ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... from the Netherlands, was counted the best general of the day, and his 30,000 Spanish regular infantry were the most formidable body of troops then in Europe. His orders from the King were to build or collect a flotilla of flat-bottomed barges to ferry his army across the straits under the protection of the Armada, and for months thousands of shipwrights had been at work in fishing ports and creeks, canals and rivers along the coast between Calais and Ostend. The Dutch rebels held Flushing and ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... look to straddle across the strait, and hold Having aye Calais for a shelter—hold Our ships in fight. To-morrow shall give account For our to-day. They will not we pass north To meddle with Parma's flotilla; their hope Being Parma, and a convoy they would be For his flat boats that bode invasion to us; And if he reach ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... a fort near Harwich, England, and bombard a British torpedo boat destroyer flotilla; German aeroplanes also bombard Nancy and the railroad station at Dombasle, southeast of Nancy, severing railroad communication with the fort at Remiremont; a German aeroplane forces a French aeroplane ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... like a flotilla, in the centre of the pond. They are not feeding; they are not attending to any business of importance; they are not even worrying about their young; they are not doing anything at all but "bath-ing" themselves, as my little lad used ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... the last of the Courteau boats through the canon, 'Poleon Doret piloted the little flotilla across to the town of White Horse and there collected his money, while Pierce Phillips and the ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... some tangible information—and that, alas! has come too late. The vessel is a swift one, and has already seven hours start of us. I've asked the Admiral to send out a couple of torpedo-boats after her, but, unfortunately, this is impossible, as the flotilla is sailing in an hour to attend the naval ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... spectacle of rare gayety and beauty, not surpassed nor equalled in some respects, when, more than a century afterwards, the "Grand Turk" or the "Essex" frigate was launched, or when Commodore Forbes, still later, swept into our peaceful waters with his boat flotilla. It was the first Fourth of July ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... faces of the town with the fire of his guns, as well as command all the sea-roads in its vicinity. He guessed, from the delay of the French in opening fire, that they were waiting for their siege-train to arrive by sea. He kept vigilant watch, pounced on the French flotilla as it rounded the promontory of Mount Carmel, captured nine of the vessels, carried them with their guns and warlike material to Acre, and mounted his thirty-four captured pieces on the batteries of the town. Thus the disgusted French saw the very guns which were intended ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the Smithsons at Gangabal, where we hope to meet them about the 5th on their way back from Tilail. The usual struggle with the crew resulted, also as usual, in our favour, and we got right through to Gunderbal at the mouth of the Sind River, where we now lie amid a flotilla of boats whose occupiers have fled away from the sultriness and smelliness of Srinagar in search of the cool currents, both of air and water, which are popularly supposed to ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... British force gave Chauncey time to complete this vessel, the "General Pike," which was so far superior to anything under Yeo's command that she was said to be equal in effective strength to the whole of the British flotilla. The American commodore was considered by many of his subordinates to have displayed excessive caution. In August he skirmished with Sir James Yeo's small squadron of six vessels, but made little effective use of his own fourteen. Two of his schooners were upset in a squall, with the loss of all ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... at a respectful distance by the flotilla of smaller boats, each containing from four to six Malays. When Jensen discerned a likely spot through his peculiar telescope, he gave the signal for a halt, and before you could realise what was going to happen, the ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the ship's three boats were pulling swiftly to the rescue, and Baringa, jumping into his own canoe, beckoned to the rest of his flotilla to follow him, and six natives urged the light craft furiously along ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... grim ruin of Grant's Tomb looked down upon the river, they came at length upon a strange, rude boat, another, then a third—a whole flotilla, moored with plaited ropes of grass to trees along ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... sail. On the right was the new harbour of La Joliette, connected with the old port by a canal. At present it did not appear to be much frequented, but, during the war in the East, both scarcely sufficed for the vast flotilla employed in conveying troops and stores. It must be difficult for any one who has not witnessed it to conceive ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... and pilots remains active, in its way, all winter; and coasting vessels come and go in the open harbor every day. The only schooner that is not so employed is, to my eye, more attractive than any of them; it is our sole winter guest, this year, of all the graceful flotilla of yachts that helped to make our summer moonlights so charming. While Europe seems in such ecstasy over the ocean yacht-race, there lies at anchor, stripped and dismantled, a vessel which was excluded from the match, it is said, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... 1505 a Portuguese fleet destroyed, with immense loss of life, a large flotilla of small boats belonging to the Rajah of Calicut. In the next year an outrage committed by the Portuguese led to a siege of their factory at Cannanore, but the timely arrival of Tristan da Cunha with a new fleet from home relieved the beleaguered garrison. At the end of 1507 ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... waters. In the squadron every one feels a sense of relief in realizing the fact that the Albemarle is no longer afloat, or capable of doing further damage; for it is no secret that she was one of the toughest customers for wooden vessels to confront that has yet floated. Her raid on the flotilla, on the 5th of last May, proved that fact beyond a shadow of a doubt. She then encountered and fought to great advantage three heavily armed double-enders—the Sassacus, Mattabessett and Wyalusing—and ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... office of the German Admiralty. The information anent the Narcissus had been brief but illuminating: She had been chartered to carry horses for the British Government from Galveston to Le Havre, and the word to get her at all hazards had been passed to the submarine flotilla. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... was made. The river about the city, above and below, was well protected by a flotilla of gun-boats improvised from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. A storm of shot and shell, such as they had not dreamed of, would have played upon their advancing columns, while our regiments, pouring down from the fortifications, would have fallen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... by the hoarse voices and the scraping of violins which rose from one of those music-boats that station at night under the hotels of the Grand Canal. The moon had set. Under my balcony the water stretched black into the distance, its darkness cut by the still darker outlines of the flotilla of gondolas in attendance on the music-boat, where the faces of the singers, and the guitars and violins, gleamed reddish under the unsteady light ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Lake Erie occurred, and was well received. Perry was twenty-seven years old, and was given command of a flotilla on Lake Erie, provided he would cut the timber and build it, meantime boarding himself. The British had long been in possession of Lake Erie, and when Perry got his scows afloat they issued invitations for a general display of carnage. They ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... awaited the 'Southern Cross' at Bauro, in a lovely bay hitherto unvisited, where a perfect flotilla of canoes came off to greet her, and the two chiefs, Iri and Eimaniaka, came on board, and no less than fifty-five men with them. The chiefs and about a dozen men were invited to spend the night ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrived in British waters in May and immediately co-operated with the British fleet in the patrol of its home waters and the hunt for German submarines. The flotilla was commanded by Vice-Admiral Sims and did effective ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... I have said there were about four hundred and fifty of the Americans, while Beckwith had twenty-five hundred men and was assisted by the flotilla of Admiral Cockburn, consisting of armed boats and barges, which appeared suddenly off Blackbeard's Point at the mouth of Hampton Creek, at the same time that Beckwith's troops moved stealthily forward through the woods under cover ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... The Loon agreed to this, and those in the other searching boats, one or two of them being small launches, having been informed of the return of the girls, the whole flotilla went back to the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... possible, when shadowy barks slipped down dusk tides, freighted with song and laughter, and snatches of guitar-tinkling; and when some sudden torch, that for an instant had summoned with its red fire all fierce lights and strong glooms, dipped, hissed, and quenched below, and, a fantastic flotilla, they passed on into the broad brilliance of a rising moon, all Middle-Age mythology rose and wafted them back into the obscurity. It was a life too fine for every day, fare too rich for health; they must be exotics who did not wither in such hot-house air. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... carried big guns fore and aft and were so equipped as to be able to give a good account of themselves should occasion arise; and as the voyage progressed a sharp lookout was kept aboard every vessel of' the flotilla, that a submarine might not come unheralded within striking distance of ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... there that Alfonso, belying his reputation as a clever politician and great general, had just embarked with all his treasures in a flotilla of four galleys, leaving the care of the war and the management of his kingdom to his son Ferdinand. Thus everything went well for the triumphant march of Charles: the gates of towns opened of themselves at his approach, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 7 broad fringes of ice lay along both banks, and all day we danced among drifting ice as in a bath of broken crockery. At night we had a whole flotilla of canoes with lanterns and torches to clear the way, when suddenly the boat swung round with a bump, and we found that the river was frozen over right across. This did not disturb us, for on the bank we saw the flames of a wood fire, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the most ample instructions in regard to these and other details of his administration, the governor embarked on board his magnificent flotilla, and crossed the bar of St. Lucar, February 15th, 1502. A furious tempest dispersed the fleet, before it had been out a week, and a report reached Spain that it had entirely perished. The sovereigns, overwhelmed with sorrow at this fresh disaster, which consigned ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... had come to one of the wharves to see us off. Yes, there was something of a stir—you know, the kind of stir that's made when boats go to sea: shouted orders, the plash of dropped cables, vagrant noises. It didn't take a great time to get under way; we were ready, waiting for the word to go. The flotilla—mother-ship, tugs and all—was out to sea long before the dawn. You would have liked the picture: the immense stretch of the grayish, winter-stricken sea, the little covey of submarines running awash, the gray mother-ship ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... danger from starvation and marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men sometimes go mad— he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully endured because, in the short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers and lakes are full of fish, the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is pouring down, and all is gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is good shooting in the autumn, and the smell of the land is like a garden, and hardy fruits and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... well die of hunger and thirst. The people, too, are wild and savage, and look upon strangers with great suspicion; and would probably have no compunction in cutting your throat. Moreover, the Catholics have a flotilla at the mouth of the Gironde, and there would be ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... heard of the poet. He was uncomfortable and ill-cared for, no doubt of that. The humming-birds were darting about like living bits of enamel set with jewels. The stately palms glittered like burnished metal. Before the house, on the deep blue waters of the bay, was a flotilla of white-sailed fishing-boats, and opposite was the green and gold mass of St. Kitts, an isolated mountain chain rising as mysteriously from the deep as the solitary cone of Nevis. She could conceive of no more inspiring spot for ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... that strayed about the floor of the Channel fanned their faces and set the bright sea-poppies nodding all along the edge of the cliffs. The sun was low in the west, and a snake-like flotilla of destroyers crept out across the quiet sea from the harbour hidden by a fold in the hills. Torps watched them with absent eyes, and there was a long silence. The wind had loosened a strand of his companion's hair, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... characteristic Indian acting, viewed by the French with interest, but apparently without the faintest alarm. The 'devils,' as soon as their boat was seized by the profane touch of the savages, fell back as if lifeless in their canoe. The assembled flotilla was directed to the shore. The 'devils' were lifted out rigid and lifeless and carried solemnly into the forest. The leaves of the underbrush closed behind them and they were concealed from sight, but from ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... adventure befell the Rangers. Rogers and his little flotilla of boats were here, there, and everywhere upon the lake. Not only did they move up and down Lake George, which was debatable ground, commanded at the different ends by a French and English fort, but they carried boats across a mountain gorge to ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ambition Where Pagan, Jew, Buddhist, Turk and Christian Struggled for the mastery of gold and power, You still march forward, giant-like and brave, Facing the morning of progress and liberty, Carrying thy cross and crown to all lands— And with thy grand flotilla, chartered by Neptune Remain mistress of all the seas, defiant— The roar of thy cannon and drum beats Heard with pride and glory around the world! Sad, how sad, to think that the day will come When not a vestige of this wonderful mass Of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... joined the long file of other vehicles at a walk, there was an incessant exchange of salutations, smiles, and friendly words, as the wheels touched. The procession seemed now like the gliding of a flotilla in which were seated very well-bred ladies and gentlemen. The Duchess, who was bowing every moment before raised hats or inclined heads, appeared to be passing them in review, calling to mind what she knew, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... boats dropped down-stream again—about three miles below the town—and were joined by two small barques. They were prizes which had been recently captured. Here the flotilla lay while the cries in the city grew inaudible,—for the inhabitants saw that the attack ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... after we had established ourselves in Kavirondo and Uganda a screw steamer of 500 tons burden was ploughing the sea-like waves of the Victoria Nyanza, and before the end of the next year our lake flotilla consisted of five ships. These were well received everywhere on the coast, and the brisk commerce created by them proved to be one of the most effective of civilising agencies. The fertility of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Anacostia, Jacob Bell, Satellite, Primrose, and Currituck, convoyed the transports up and down the river, and the Jacob Bell covered the landing at Carter's Creek. These vessels of the Potomac flotilla were under the command of ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... give the world to have possession of the Spanish flotilla, for without it I can never cross ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... noting down the approximate position of the magazines and other stores as supplied by the map of Tony Brown. The doctors were also alive. They were clearing out the field hospitals preparatory to the gruesome slaughter ahead. Out at sea a flotilla of gunboats and destroyers had quietly arrived and were circling round, waiting for the coming fray. Everything had been thought of; ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... Scott. Fremont's military capacity perhaps is equal to zero; his vanity put him in the hands of wily flatterers; but the disasters in the West cannot be credited to him. Fremont initiated the construction of the mortar flotilla on the Mississippi (I positively know such is the fact), and he suggested the capture of various forts, but was not sustained at ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... engaging nine or ten Spanish gun-boats, which had come out from Algesiras to attack her. It still continued a dead calm, and the boats of the frigate were all ahead towing her, so as to bring her broadside to bear upon the Spanish flotilla. The reverberating of the heavy cannon on both sides over the placid surface of the water—the white smoke ascending as the sun rose in brilliancy in a clear blue sky—the distant echoes repeated from the high hills—had a very beautiful effect for those who are partial to the picturesque. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... while the Japanese skilfully manoeuvred to press the Russians from side and rear, forcing them towards the coast, where they were attacked by the Japanese column there advancing. In this way the fleet was nearly surrounded, the torpedo-boat flotilla being thrown out to intercept those vessels that sought to ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... black hull. A hundred men toiled on and around her, and in a remarkably short time a jury patch was made in her gaping side and her hold pumped dry. Then crews were picked to man the three captured sloops, and the flotilla was ready to return triumphant. On the morning when they stood out to sea, the twelve men of Rhett's party who had been killed in action were buried with military honors, saluted by the cannon of ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... the channel squadron on hoard the 'Medusa' frigate. I went on board, and the admiral instantly rated me as quartermaster. We had plenty of work before us, for General Bonaparte, who was now Emperor of France, wanted to come and invade England. He had got a flotilla of gunboats all ready to carry over his army, and he had a large fleet besides. Many people thought he would succeed. We knew that the wooden walls of old England were her best defence, and so we afloat never ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... view, as it commands the great outlet of the Irrawaddy. It fell before the British arms, in May 1852, during the second Burmese war. In 1901 it had a population of 31,864. The vessels of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company ply between Rangoon and Bassein, &c., by inland waters, and a railway opened in 1903 runs northeastward through the centre of the district, to Henzada ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the place from the sea," the lieutenant said, "as we were cruising backwards and forwards, keeping a bright look-out to see that Bonaparte's boat flotilla did not put to sea, but I did not expect that I should some day be walking ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... koketulino. Flirtation koketeco. Flit flirti. Float (intrans.) nagxi. Float (trans.) flosi. Flock (congregation) zorgitaro. Flock aro. Flog skurgxi. Flood superakvego. Floor planko. Floor (storey) etagxo. Florid rugxega. Florin floreno. Florist floristo. Flotilla sxipareto. Flour faruno. Flourish (brandish) svingi. Flow flui. Flow (of blood) sangversxo. Flow away deflui. Flower flori. Flower-bed florbedo. Flower-garden florejo. Fluctuate sxanceligxi. Flue kamentubo. Fluent ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... flag in the Melampus frigate of 44 guns. The Frederica, of same size, was commanded by Captain Van der Straten. The other four vessels were smaller. There were, besides, a flotilla of fifty-five small craft, including mortar and ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... he would equally have been hailed an Emperor of the French in May, 1804. When he came from the coast, in the preceding winter, and was convinced of the impossibility of making any impression on the British Islands with his flotilla, he convoked his confidential Senators, who then, with Talleyrand, settled the Senatus Consultum which appeared five months afterwards. Mehee's correspondence with Mr. Drake was then known to him; but he and the Minister of Police were both unacquainted ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... three squadrons which were attacking Hull, Newcastle and Dover: three had been detailed for the attack on Portsmouth: two more to Plymouth, two to Bristol and Liverpool respectively, on which combined cruiser and torpedo attacks were to be made, and two supported by a small swift cruiser and torpedo flotilla for an assault on Cardiff, in order if possible to terrorise that city into submission and so obtain what may be called the life-blood of a modern navy. The rest, in case of accidents to any of these, were reserved for the final attack ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... not take long to reach the house and soon the three were in the wonderful room with its panorama of ships moving past the windows and its flotilla of still more ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... those in the canoes when the Cree chief was recognised, and the flotilla, coming on at full speed, soon reached ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... sea-picture, the sturdy Pickering riding deep with her burden of sugar and seeming smaller than she really was, the Achilles towering like a frigate, and all Bilbao turned out to watch the duel, shore and headlands crowded with spectators, the blue harbor-mouth gay with an immense flotilla of fishing boats and pleasure craft. The stake for which Haraden fought was to retake the Golden Eagle prize and to gain his port. His seamanship was flawless. Vastly outnumbered if it should come to boarding, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... Blennerhassett's bateau reached the mouth of the Cumberland and joined Burr's flotilla of a dozen similar boats. The number of men ready to embark for the Wachita counted only three or four score. This informidable showing discouraged Blennerhassett, but the "general," for so Burr was now styled, saw fleet and men with the multiplying eye of faith, and he ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... for some distance, thoroughly enjoying the spin on the lake that fine Summer day. They stopped for lunch at a picnic resort, and coming back in the cool of the evening they found themselves in the midst of a little flotilla of pleasure craft, all decorated with ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... beautiful to see the flotilla navigating the level surface of Killantringan moor—level, that is, by comparison. For first there were the little waves of the sheep-tracks, then the gentle rollers of the moss-hags, and, last of all, certain black dangerous Maelstroms from which ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... to reinforce the army in Canada. On the sixteenth of August a small fleet of British vessels in Chesapeake Bay was reinforced by thirty sail under the command of Admirals Cochrane and Malcombe, one half of which were ships of war. A large part of this flotilla moved up the Potomac and disembarked about six thousand men, under command of General Ross. The battle of Bladensburg was fought on the twenty-fourth, followed immediately by the capture of Washington and the burning of the Government ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... and it remained only to attack and take the capital in order to have complete possession of the entire region watered by the two great rivers. For this purpose a fleet was again necessary, and, as the ships used on the upper Tigris had, it would seem, been abandoned, Trajan conveyed a flotilla, which had descended the Euphrates, across Mesopotamia on rollers, and launching it upon the Tigris, proceeded to the attack of the great metropolis. Here again the resistance that he encountered was trivial. Like Babylon and Seleucia, Ctesiphon at once opened its gates. The ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... was not, however, so heavily taxed, for during the day a flotilla of fifteen canoes stopped before the plantation, and a dozen of French traders came up to the house. They were intimate friends of the captain, who had known them for a long time, and it fortunately ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... precautions and arranged with the Minister of War to have a certain amount of wood delivered at the house. They always had reserves of wood at the various ministries. We had ours directly from our own woods in the country, and it was en route, but a flotilla of boats was frozen up in the Canal de l'Ourcq, and it might be weeks before the wood ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... seaport in France, on the English Channel, in the dep. of Pas-de-Calais, 27 m. SW. of Calais, one of the principal ports for debarkation from England; where Napoleon collected in 1803 a flotilla to invade England; is connected by steamer with Folkestone, and a favourite watering-place; the chief station of the North Sea fisheries; is the centre of an important coasting trade, and likely to become a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... forty-eight oars, bristling with guns and carrying marines. His flagship was a large brigantine, manned by picked rowers, from the mast of which floated the red banner with the golden palle of the Medicean arms. Besides these larger vessels, he commanded a flotilla of countless small boats. It is clear that to reckon with him was a necessity. If he could not be put down with force, he might be bought over by concessions. The Spaniards adopted the second course, and Il Medeghino, judging that the cause of the Sforza family was desperate, determined in 1528 ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... The mortar flotilla was commanded by Captain Henry E. Maynadier, assisted by Captain E. B. Pike of the engineers. There were four Masters of Ordnance, who commanded each four mortars. Each mortar-boat had a crew of fifteen men; three of them were Mississippi flatboatmen, who understood all about the river, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the town is an extensive basin surrounded by quays, the heaps of fresh soil around showing it to be a recent excavation from the banks of the Liane. The basin is crowded with the flotilla, consisting of hundreds of vessels of sundry kinds: flat-bottomed brigs with guns and two masts; boats of one mast, carrying each an artillery waggon, two guns, and a two-stalled horse-box; transports with three low masts; and long ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... saw why they had crossed: there were some people come down to the landing place on the other bank in two batteaux and an Oneida canoe—soldiers, boatmen, and two women; and our men were fording the river to protect the crossing of this small flotilla. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... moves along the beach as the flotilla of drifting boats move slowly with the tide. They can hear the shouting from boat to boat, but catch but little of the words. They follow on, with little speech among themselves, and hope dying slowly out of their ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... letters from Ahmedabad, advising that indigo had greatly fallen in price, in consequence of the non-arrival of the flotilla from Goa. The unicorn's horn had been returned, as without virtue, concerning which I sent new advice.[212] Many complaints were made concerning Surat and others, which I do not insert. I received two letters from Burhanpoor, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... 10th, the boats left the fort, and encamped after making only a few miles. Our flotilla consisted of a Mackinaw barge and three canoes—one of them that in which we had descended the river; and a party in all of twenty men. One of the emigrants, Mr. Burnet, of Missouri, who had left his family and property at the Dalles, availed himself of the opportunity afforded by the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... the river was narrowing again and that the wooded banks had begun to fly past very swiftly. There was no mistaking the signs. They were approaching more rapids. But the trick of guiding the craft down rapids had now been learned; so the flotilla rode the furious waters unharmed ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... longboat, catboat, felucca, cutter, frigate, xebec, tartan, una boat, moses, raft, catamaran, sampan, lifeboat, caravel, trekschuit, masoola, argo, coggle. Associated Words: davits, oar, helm, stern, pilot, rudder, flotilla, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... by the United States, and our Minister in France for that reason protested against the Quintuple Treaty; his conduct had the approval of the administration. On this account the eighth article was inserted, causing each government to keep a flotilla in African waters to enforce the laws. If this should be done by all the powers, the trade would be swept from the ocean. House Journal, 27 Cong. ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... gave Beauregard early notice of Grant's flotilla at Pittsburg Landing, about the 1st of April. Let me here repeat that the Rebel army has an incalculable advantage over the Federal troops, because fighting on their own soil, and where every man, woman, and child is a ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... The Buffalo flotilla slowed and stopped, and in a matter of minutes the detachments from the other bases arrived. The cone was formed and iron-driven vessels in the van, the old-type craft far in the rear, it bore down upon the Nevian, vomiting ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... fellow and his companions to their knees and shattered the glass in the pilot-house windows. The boats behind fouled each other, then drifted down upon the scow, and the tide, seizing the whole flotilla, began to spin it slowly. Rushing to the ladder, Emerson leaped into another launch which fortunately was at hand, and the next instant as the little craft sped out from the side of The Bedford Castle, he saw ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... tactics he has merely profited by a method which is practised freely upon the water. The torpedo boat flotilla when in danger of being overwhelmed by superior forces will throw off copious clouds of smoke. Under this cover it is able to steal away, trusting to the speed of the craft to carry them well beyond gunshot. The "smoke ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... to collect fifty French ships-of-the-line in the Channel by misleading the English; this was, in fact, upon the point of being done; it is then no longer impossible, with a favorable wind, to pass over the flotilla in two days and effect a landing. But what would become of the army if a storm should disperse the fleet of ships of war and the English should return in force to the Channel and defeat the fleet or oblige it to ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... danger. After a hasty farewell and a promise of speedy return, for his presence with the forces was imperative and he grudged every hour of absence from his beloved, he set out alone in his boat. Before an hour had passed he was captured by a flotilla which had been lying in ambuscade behind the Grandes Rocques, and was a prisoner ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... land, the British had now for a time to stay their pursuit; for the water highway essential to its continuance was controlled by the flotilla under the command of Benedict Arnold, forbidding further advance until it was subdued. The presence of these vessels, which, though few, were as yet unopposed, gained for the Americans, in this hour of extremity, the important respite from June to October, 1776; and then the lateness ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like Caesar's, had shaken Europe,—soldiers who had scaled the Pyramids, and planted the French banners on the Walls of Rome. He looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and turning to Christophe, exclaimed: "All France is come to Hayti; they can only come to make us slaves; and we are lost!" He then recognized the only mistake of his life,—his confidence in Bonaparte, which had ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... irrigation. When at some distance from shore, Pizarro saw standing towards him several large balsas, which were found to be filled with warriors going on an expedition against the island of Puna. Running alongside of the Indian flotilla, he invited some of the chiefs to come on board of his vessel. The Peruvians gazed with wonder on every object which met their eyes, and especially on their own countrymen, whom they had little expected to meet there. The latter ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott |
