The cruise was perfectly successful; and Don John, on his return to port, some eight months later, might boast that, in more than one engagement, he had humbled the pride of the corsairs, and so far crippled them that it would be long before they could resume their depredations; that, in fine, he had vindicated the honour of his country's flag throughout the Mediterranean. His return to Madrid was welcomed with the honours of a triumph. Courtier and commoner, men of all classes, in short, vied with each other in offering up the sweet incense of adulation, filling his young mind with lofty visions of the future, that beckoned him forward in the path of glory. [Sidenote: DON JOHN MADE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.] When the insurrection of the Moriscoes broke out in 1568, the eyes of men naturally turned on Don John of Austria, as the person who would most likely be sent to suppress it. But Philip thought it would be safer to trust the command to those who, from their long residence in the neighbourhood, were better acquainted with the character of the country and of its inhabitants. When, however, the dissensions of the rival chiefs made it necessary to send some one invested with such powers as might enable him to overawe this factious spirit and enforce greater concert of action, the council of state recommended Don John to the command. Their recommendation was approved by the king, if, indeed, it was not originally made at his suggestion. Still the "prudent" monarch was careful not to invest his brother with that independent command which the public supposed him to possess. On the contrary, his authority was restricted within limits almost as narrow as those which had curbed it in the Mediterranean. A council of war was appointed, by whose opinions Don John was to be guided in every question of moment. In case of a division of opinion, the question was to be referred to the decision of Philip.[150] The chief members of this body, in whom the supreme power was virtually lodged, were the marquis of Mondejar, who from this time does not appear to have taken the field in person; the duke of Sessa, grandson of the great captain, Gonsalvo de Córdova, and endowed with no small portion of the military talent of his ancestor; the archbishop of Granada, a prelate possessed of as large a measure of bigotry as ever fell to the lot of a Spanish ecclesiastic; Deza, president of the Audience, who hated the Moriscoes with the fierce hatred of an inquisitor; and, finally, Don John's faithful _ayo_, Quixada, who had more influence over him than was enjoyed by any other, and who had come to witness the first of his pupil's campaigns, destined, alas! to be the closing one of his own.[151]