HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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if Providence too had ordained that ill fortune should instantly follow hisdecease, the galley which conveyed his inanimate body was wrecked on theItalian shore.

The power and consequence of the Normans appears to have remained in adormant, or at least quiescent state, for more than forty years subsequent to thedeath of Robert, when his nephew, Roger Guiscard, quitted Palermo at the headof a squadron consisting of no more than seven gallies, in the ambitious hope ofextending his conquests, till by the union of Sicily with a dominion spreadingover at least a third part of Italy, he might lay the foundation of a kingdomwhich might vie with many of those then existing in Europe, and be surpassedonly by a few. The disputes which then raged among the Christian princes inregard to the person most proper to fill the Papal chair, and the unlucky choicemade by the Norman of the least popular candidate, caused him to be driven for ashort time from his Italian possessions. But the king of Sicily, which title hehad assumed before his expedition commenced, soon rose superior to misfortune,having effected, as is darkly hinted by historians, that victory by corruption whichin this particular instance he was unable to procure by force of arms.

Whether in the hope of wiping off the check and disgrace, which he consi-dered as having tarnished the lustre of his arms, or in the ambitious expectationof rivalling in extent the possessions of the Emperor of the East, is impossible,at this distant period of time, to be ascertained, nor indeed is it of the smallestconsequence. But having equipped, in the year 1145, a A eet » the extent ofwhich is not mentioned, the Sicilian monarch first attacked the island ofMalta, which, together with the city of Tripoli, he soon rendered himselfmaster of, and annexed to his dominions. Mahadia was the next destinedobject of assault, and the force allotted the service appears to have beenequal to an undertaking of the first magnitude, for its force is reported to haveamounted to one hundred and fifty gallies cf considerable magnitude, and fullymanned. The conquest was rapid, and Tunis, with many other towns andports since fallen to decay, served to elevate the ambition, and pamper the prideof the Sicilian conqueror.

Elated by so rapid a stream of good fortune, the nephew of Robert Guiscardexasperated at being refused, with some marks of contempt, a princess of theimperial blood, whom he demanded in marriage, resolved, after a peace ofsixty years continuance, to renew hostilities against the Emperor of the East!

O o 2 A fleet,