The Story of the Barbary CorsairsLane-Poole, Stanley
History
The Story of the Barbary Corsairs
Lane-Poole, Stanley
Africa, North -- History -- 1517-1882; Pirates
For three days Charles gave up the city of Tunis to the brutality of
his soldiers. They were days of horrible license and bloodshed. Men,
women, and children were massacred, and worse than massacred, in
thousands. The infuriated troops fought one with the other for the
possession of the spoil, and the luckless Christians of the Kasaba were
cut down by their deliverers in the struggle for Kheyr-ed-dīn's
treasures. The streets became shambles, the houses dens of murder and
shame: the very Catholic chroniclers admit the abominable outrages
committed by the licentious and furious soldiery of the great Emperor.
It is hard to remember that almost at the very time when German and
Spanish and Italian men-at-arms were outraging and slaughtering
helpless, innocent people in Tunis, who had taken little or no hand in
Kheyr-ed-dīn's wars and had accepted his authority with reluctance,
the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm was entering Baghdād and Tebrīz as
a conqueror at the head of wild Asiatic troops, and not a house nor a
human being was molested. _Fas est et ab hoste doceri._
So far as Tunis was concerned the expedition of Charles V. was
fruitless. Before he sailed in August he made a treaty with Hasan,
which stipulated for tribute to Spain, the possession of the Goletta
by the crown of Castile, the freeing of Christian slaves, the
cessation of piracy, and the payment of homage by an annual tribute
of six Moorish barbs and twelve falcons; and he and the Moor duly
swore it on Cross and sword. But the treaty was so much parchment
wasted. No Moslem prince who had procured his restoration by such
means as Hasan had used, who had spilt Moslem blood with Christian
weapons and ruined Moslem homes by the sacrilegious atrocities of
"infidel" soldiers, and had bound himself the vassal of "idolatrous"
Spain, could hope to keep his throne long. He was an object of horror
and repulsion to the people upon whom he had brought this awful
calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of the traitor to Islam that
the story is told of a Moorish girl in the clutch of the soldiers,
who, when the restored King of Tunis sought to save her, spat in his
face; anything was better than the dishonour of his protection. Hasan
pretended to reign for five years, but the country was in arms, holy
Kayrawān would have nothing to say to a governor who owed his
throne to infidel ravishers; Imperial troops in vain sought to keep
him there; Doria himself succeeded only for a brief while in reducing
the coast towns to the wretched prince's authority; and in 1540 Hasan
was imprisoned and blinded by his son Hamīd, and none can pity him.
The coast was in the possession of the Corsairs, and, as we shall see,
even the Spaniards were forced ere long to abandon the Goletta.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account