The
Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
to fight.
His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
attack?
"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, "the English
shot Admiral Byng in 1756.
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