Nelson attacks after dark

Finding the French fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay in the late afternoon, Nelson went straight in rather than wait for morning, and fought all night in an unsurveyed bay.

Every eighteenth-century instinct said not to. He sent ships between the French line and the shore, so the enemy was fired on from both sides at once, and around ten at night L'Orient's magazine went up — a bang heard in Alexandria, and a pause in the shooting long enough for people to write about it afterwards. There was a bright moon that night, which is the only reason any of it was possible.