The Story of the Barbary CorsairsLane-Poole, Stanley
History
The Story of the Barbary Corsairs
Lane-Poole, Stanley
Africa, North -- History -- 1517-1882; Pirates
Almost at the same time the brothers Barbarossa had effected a similar
triumph in the west. The capture of Algiers and the firm establishment
of various strong garrisons on the Barbary coast had given the Turkish
Corsairs the command of the western basin of the Mediterranean.
Suleymān the Magnificent saw the necessity of combination; he knew
that Kheyr-ed-dīn could teach the Stambol navigators and
ship-builders much that they ought to learn; his Grand Vezīr
Ibrahīm strenuously urged a closer relation between the Turkish
powers of the east and west; and Kheyr-ed-dīn received the Imperial
command to present himself at Constantinople.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] See S. Lane-Poole, _The Story of Turkey_, 135.
[14] See _The Story of Turkey_, 136.
[15] _History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks_, 20.
[16] Hājji Khalīfa, 21.
[17] Jurien de la Gravière, _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. I., ch. xv.
[18] See the _Story of Turkey_, 158-163.
[19] See S. Lane-Poole, _The Art of the Saracens_, 239, &c.
[20] _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. II., ch. vii.
[21] _Ibid._, Pt. II., ch. vii., p. 106 ff.
[22] See the _Story of Turkey_, 170; and the illustrations, pp. 137,
147, 171, 175, 177.
VII.
DORIA AND BARBAROSSA.
1533.
Kheyr-ed-dīn was in no hurry to visit the Sublime Porte. He had to
provide for the safety and government of Algiers during his absence,
when exposed to the dangers both of foreign attack and internal
intrigue. He had to reckon with the galleys of the Knights of St.
John, who, after wandering homeless for a longer time than was at all
creditable to that Christendom which they had so heroically defended
at Rhodes, had finally settled in no less convenient a spot than
Malta, whence they had every opportunity of harassing the operations
of the Corsairs (1530). Moreover Andrea Doria was cruising about, and
he was not the sort of opponent Barbarossa cared to meet by hazard.
The great Genoese admiral considered it a personal duel with
Kheyr-ed-dīn. Each held the supreme position on his own side of the
water. Both were old men and had grown old in arms. Born in 1468, of a
noble Genoese family, Doria was sixty-five years of age, of which
nearly fifty had been spent in warfare. He had been in the Pope's
guard, and had seen service under the Duke of Urbino and Alfonso of
Naples, and when he was over forty he had taken to the sea and found
himself suddenly High Admiral of Genoa (1513). His appointment to the
command of his country's galleys was due to his zealous services on
shore, and not to any special experience of naval affairs; indeed the
commander of the galleys was as much a military as a naval officer.
Doria, however, late as he adopted his profession, possessed undoubted
gifts as a seaman, and his leadership decided which of the rival
Christian Powers should rule the Mediterranean waves. He devoted his
sword to France in 1522, when a revolution overthrew his party in his
own republic; and so long as he was on the French side the command of
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