[a. Sp. flotilla, dim. of flota a fleet: see FLOTA.] A small fleet; a fleet of boats or small vessels.
1711. Lond. Gaz., No. 4890/1. The Flotilla … was sail’d.
1739. Let., in Descr. Windward Passage (ed. 2), 3. They commonly dispatch a few Ships into Europe, who, besides their proper Cargoes, carry an Account of what is on Board the Galleons and Flota. The Ships are stiled the Flotilla.
1801. P. Somerville, in A. Duncan, Nelson (1806), 198. for the purpose of attacking the enemy’s flotilla in the bay of Boulogne.
1826. H. N. Coleridge, West Indies, 125. I was much amused too with a flotilla of fishing or passage boats.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), II. VI. iii. 155. King August, for one item, sailing to it, with sound of trumpet and hautbois, in silken flotillas gayer than Cleopatra’s, down the Elbe.
