En Pedro received information from the gallant sea-captains Marquet and Malliol, who were ever on the watch, that the French King had 160 galleys; that his admiral kept sixty well-armed in the port of San Felio; that another fifty cruised between San Felio and the bay of Rosas; while twenty-five plied between those ports and Marseilles with provisions. Another twenty-five remained in the bay of Rosas, under the command of a brave knight, M. de Lodève. The proposal of the Catalan captains was to watch for an opportunity when the other cruisers were out of sight, and to fall upon the twenty-five French galleys in Rosas Bay at early dawn. The King approved of their daring scheme, and at the same time he sent to Sicily for the Admiral Roger de Lauria to come with sixty galleys and attack the rest of the French fleet. Marquet and Malliol set out on their enterprise with eleven galleys and two small vessels. But never were crews better disciplined or more carefully trained. They made sail for the Cape of Creus, where they ascertained that the twenty-five French galleys were in Rosas Bay. As soon as the Catalans came in sight, M. de Lodève sent fifteen galleys to dispute their entrance into the bay; while he intended to manœuvre with the rest so as to cut off their retreat, that none might escape. Marquet and Malliol formed in close order to prevent the enemy from dividing their line, and ran on with a view of boarding. Their trust was in their crossbowmen. The Catalans considered that no one was a crossbowman unless he was so familiar with every part of his weapon that he could make it or repair it. Each man carried a box containing all the tools necessary; and the Catalans were so constantly trained in the use of the crossbow that no other people could compete with them. The Catalan captains manœuvred so as to secure the greatest advantage for their special weapon. Every shot told; while the French, with swords and lances, were unable to return the attack, being shot down when they attempted to board. When the French decks were nearly cleared, Marquet and Malliol ordered the trumpets to be sounded as a signal for his galleys to separate under oars and attack the enemy on their broadsides. Then began an unequal combat, the Catalans boarding at the sword’s point, while the French had already suffered so severely as only to be able to offer a feeble resistance. The whole of the twenty-five galleys were captured, with a loss of upwards of four thousand on the part of the French, and of barely a hundred on the Catalan side. This naval battle was a combination of consummate seamanship with consummate gunnery practice, the one of little avail without the other.