Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers — John Shaqi
Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneersChatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
History
Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers
Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
Pirates
This was the biggest blow which Barbarossa had ever received. But brute
though he was, cruel tyrant that he had shown himself, enemy of the human
race though he undoubtedly must be reckoned, yet his was a great mind,
his was a spirit which was only impelled and not depressed by disasters.
At the end of a pitiful flight, he arrived farther along the African
coast at the port of Bona, where there remained just fifteen galleys
which he had kept in reserve. All else that was his had gone—ships,
arsenal, men. But the sea being his natural element, and piracy his
natural profession, he began at once to embark. But just then there
arrived fifteen of the Christian galleys, so Barbarossa, not caring for
conflict, drew up his galleys under the fort of Bona, and the enemy
deemed it prudent to let the corsair alone, and withdrew. Soon after
Barbarossa put to sea and disappeared, when Andrea Doria with forty
galleys arrived on the scene too late.
Just as on an earlier occasion already narrated, the Christian expedition
made the mistake of not pressing home their victory and so settling
matters with the pirates for good and all. Algiers had been drained so
thoroughly of men that it was really too weak to resist an attack. But
no; the Christians left that alone, although they took Bona. About the
middle of August Charles re-embarked his men and, satisfied with the
thrashing he had given these pirates, returned home. But Barbarossa
proceeded to Algiers, where he got together a number of galleys and
waited till his former followers—or as many as had survived battle and
the African desert—returned to him. If Moslem piracy had been severely
crushed, it was not unable to revive, and, before long, Barbarossa with
his veterans was afloat again, looting ships at sea, and carrying off
more prisoners to Algiers. For this piracy was like a highly infectious
disease. You might think for a time that it was stamped out, that the
world had been cleansed of it, but in a short time it would be manifest
that the evil was as prevalent as ever.
Once more he was summoned to visit Soliman the Magnificent; once more
the arch-corsair sped to Constantinople to receive instructions to
deal with the conquering Christians. Andrea Doria was at sea, burning
Turkish ships, and only this Sultan of Algiers could deal with him. So
away Barbarossa went in his customary fashion, raiding the Adriatic
towns, sweeping the islands of the Archipelago, and soon he returned to
Constantinople with 18,000 slaves, to say nothing of material prizes.
Money was obtained as easily as human lives, and the world marvelled
that this corsair admiral, this scourge of the sea, this enemy of the
Christian race, should, after a crushing defeat, be able to go about his
dastardly work, terrifying towns and ships as though the expedition of
Charles V. had never been sent forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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