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The Story of the Nations THE STORY OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS
The Story of the Nations THE STORY OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS
BY AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE,” “TURKEY,” “THE MOORS IN SPAIN,” ETC., ETC. WITH THE COLLABORATION OF LIEUT. J. D. JERROLD KELLEY, U.S. NAVY NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 1890 Copyright By G. P. Putnam’s Sons 1890 Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London By T. Fisher Unwin Press of G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York...
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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS
12MO, ILLUSTRATED. PER VOL., $1.50 THE EARLIER VOLUMES ARE For prospectus of the series see end of this volume. G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON...
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LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.
LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.
Batūta, Ibn- : Voyages. Ed. Defrémery. 4 vols. Paris. 1874-9. Braithwaite, J. : History of the Revolutions in the Empire of Morocco upon the death of the late Emperor Muley Ishmael. 1729. Brantôme, P. de Bourdeille, Seign. De. : Hommes illustres, Œuvres. Vols. 1 and 2. Paris. 1822. Broadley, A. M. : Tunis, Past and Present. 2 vols. 1882. Celesia, E. : Conspiracy of Fieschi. E. T. 1866. Cervantes : Don Quixote. Trans. H. E. Watts. 5 vols. 1888-9. Chenier, L. S. : Present State of the Empire of Mo
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I. THE REVENGE OF THE MOORS.
I. THE REVENGE OF THE MOORS.
For more than three centuries the trading nations of Europe were suffered to pursue their commerce or forced to abandon their gains at the bidding of pirates. From the days when Barbarossa defied the whole strength of the Emperor Charles V., to the early part of the present century, when prizes were taken by Algerine rovers under the guns, so to say, of all the fleets of Europe, the Corsairs were masters of the narrow seas, and dictated their own terms to all comers. Nothing but the creation of
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II. THE LAND OF THE CORSAIRS.
II. THE LAND OF THE CORSAIRS.
It is time to ask how it was that a spacious land seemed to lie vacant for the Corsairs to occupy, and a land too that offered almost every feature that a pirate could desire for the safe and successful prosecution of his trade. Geographers tell us that in climate and formation the island of Barbary, for such it is geologically, is really part of Europe, towards which, in history, it has played so unfriendly a part. Once the countries, which we now know as Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, stood up a
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III. URŪJ BARBAROSSA.
III. URŪJ BARBAROSSA.
1504-1515. The island of Lesbos has given many gifts to the world—Lesbian wine and Lesbian verse, the seven-stringed lyre, and the poems of Sappho; but of all its products the latest was assuredly the most questionable, for the last great Lesbians were the brothers Barbarossa. When Sultan Mohammed II. conquered the island in 1462, he left there a certain Sipāhi soldier, named Ya’kūb—so say the Turkish annalists, but the Spanish writers claim him as a native Christian—who became the father of Urū
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IV. THE TAKING OF ALGIERS.
IV. THE TAKING OF ALGIERS.
1516-1518. The new Sultan of Jījil was now called to a much more serious enterprize than heading his truculent highlanders against a neighbouring tribe—though it must be admitted that he was always in his element when fisticuffs were in request. An appeal had come from Algiers. The Moors there had endured for seven years the embargo of the Spaniards; they had seen their fregatas rotting before their eyes, and never dared to mend them; they had viewed many a rich prize sail by, and never so much
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V. KHEYR-ED-DĪN BARBAROSSA.
V. KHEYR-ED-DĪN BARBAROSSA.
1518-1530. Urūj Barbarossa, the gallant, impulsive, reckless, lovable soldier of fortune was dead, and it seemed as if all the power he had built up by his indomitable energy must inevitably vanish with its founder. The Marquis de Comares and the Spanish army held the fate of Algiers in their hands; one steady march, and surely the Corsairs must be swept out of Africa. But, with what would seem incredible folly, if it had not been often repeated, the troops were shipped back to Spain, the Marqui
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VI. THE OTTOMAN NAVY.
VI. THE OTTOMAN NAVY.
1470-1522. No one appreciated better the triumphs of the Beglerbeg of Algiers than Sultan Suleymān. The Ottomans, as yet inexperienced in naval affairs, were eager to take lessons. The Turkish navy had been of slow growth, chiefly because in early days there were always people ready to act as sailors for pay. When Murād I. wished to cross from Asia to Europe to meet the invading army of Vladislaus and Hunyady, the Genoese skippers were happy to carry over his men for a ducat a head, just to spit
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VII. DORIA AND BARBAROSSA.
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 e
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VIII. TUNIS TAKEN AND LOST.
VIII. TUNIS TAKEN AND LOST.
1534-1535. The dwellers on the coasts of Italy soon discovered the new spirit in the Turkish fleet; they had now to dread Corsairs on both hands, east as well as west. In the summer of 1534 Kheyr-ed-dīn led his new fleet of eighty-four galleys forth from the Golden Horn, to flesh their appetite on a grand quest of prey. Entering the Straits of Messina, he surprised Reggio, and carried off ships and slaves; stormed and burnt the castle of S. Lucida next day, and took eight hundred prisoners; seiz
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IX. THE SEA-FIGHT OFF PREVESA.
IX. THE SEA-FIGHT OFF PREVESA.
1537. When Barbarossa returned to Constantinople Tunis was forgotten and Minorca alone called to mind: instead of the title of Beglerbeg of Algiers, the Sultan saluted him as Capudan Pasha or High Admiral of the Ottoman fleets. There was work to be done in the Adriatic, and none was fitter to do it than the great Corsair. Kheyr-ed-dīn had acquired an added influence at Stambol since the execution of the Grand Vezīr Ibrahīm, [33] and he used it in exactly the opposite direction. Ibrahīm, a Dalmat
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X. BARBAROSSA IN FRANCE.
X. BARBAROSSA IN FRANCE.
1539-1546. Barbarossa’s life was drawing to a close, but in the eight years that remained he enhanced his already unrivalled renown. His first exploit after Prevesa was the recapture of Castelnuovo, which the allied fleets had seized in October, as some compensation on land for their humiliation at sea. The Turkish armies had failed to recover the fortress in January, 1539; but in July Barbarossa went to the front as usual, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, large and small, and all his best c
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XI. CHARLES AT ALGIERS.
XI. CHARLES AT ALGIERS.
1541. When Barbarossa left Algiers for ever in 1535 to become the High Admiral of the Ottoman Empire, the Corsairs lost indeed their chief; but so many of his captains remained behind that the game of sea roving went on as merrily as ever. Indeed so fierce and ruthless were their depredations that the people of Italy and Spain and the islands began to regret the attentions of so gentlemanly a robber as Barbarossa. His successor or viceroy at Algiers was a Sardinian renegade, Hasan the Eunuch; bu
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XII. DRAGUT REÏS.
XII. DRAGUT REÏS.
1543-1560. The name of Dragut has already occurred more than once in this history: it was destined to become as notorious as Barbarossa’s as the century advanced. Dragut—or Torghūd—was born on the Caramanian coast opposite the island of Rhodes. Unlike many of his colleagues he seems to have been the son of Mohammedan parents, tillers of the earth. Being adventurous by nature, he took service as a boy in the Turkish fleet and became “a good pilot and a most excellent gunner.” At last he contrived
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XIII. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
XIII. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
1565. When Sultan Suleymān reflected on the magnanimity which he had displayed towards the Knights of Rhodes in allowing them to depart in peace in 1522, his feelings must have resembled those of Doria when he thought of that inconsiderate release of Dragut in 1543. Assuredly the royal clemency had been ill-rewarded; the Knights had displayed a singular form of gratitude to the sparer of their lives; they had devoted themselves to him, indeed, but devoted themselves to his destruction. The caval
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XIV. LEPANTO.
XIV. LEPANTO.
1571. The failure of the siege of Malta was a sensible rebuff, yet it cannot be said that it seriously injured the renown of the Turks in the Mediterranean. They had been resisted on land; they had not yet been beaten at sea. Nor could they look back on the terrible months of the siege without some compensating feeling of consolation. They had taken St. Elmo, and its fall had aroused general jubilation in every Moslem breast; the Moors of Granada went near to rising against the Spaniards on the
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XV. THE GENERAL OF THE GALLEYS.
XV. THE GENERAL OF THE GALLEYS.
16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. The age of the great Corsairs may be said to have ended with the battle of Lepanto, which sounded the knell of the naval supremacy of the Ottomans. It is true that they seemed to have lost little by Don John’s famous victory; their beard was shorn, they admitted, but it soon grew again:—their fleet was speedily repaired, and the Venetians sued for peace. But they had lost something more precious to them than ships or men: their prestige was gone. The powers of Chr
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XVI. GALLEYS AND GALLEY SLAVES.
XVI. GALLEYS AND GALLEY SLAVES.
16th Century. “The Corsairs,” says Haedo, “are those who support themselves by continual sea-robberies; and, admitting that among their numbers some of them are natural Turks, Moors, &c., yet the main body of them are renegadoes from every part of Christendom; all who are extremely well acquainted with the Christian coasts.” It is a singular fact that the majority of these plunderers of Christians were themselves born in the Faith. In the long list of Algerine viceroys, we meet with many
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XVII. THE TRIUMPH OF SAILS.
XVII. THE TRIUMPH OF SAILS.
17th Century. At the beginning of the seventeenth century a notable change came over the tactics of the Corsairs: they built fewer galleys, and began to construct square-sailed ships. In Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli the dockyards teemed with workmen busily engaged in learning the new build; and the honour, if such it be, of having taught them rests apparently between England and Flanders. Simon Danser, the Flemish rover, taught the Algerines the fashion of “round ships,” in 1606, and an Englishma
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XVIII. THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.
XVIII. THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES.
17th and 18th Centuries. When galleys went out of fashion, and “round ships” took their place, it may be supposed that the captivity of Christian slaves diminished. In reality, however, the number of slaves employed on the galleys was small compared with those who worked on shore. If the Spanish historian be correct in his statement that at the close of the sixteenth century the Algerines possessed but thirty-six galleys and galleots, (the brigantines were not rowed by slaves,) with a total of t
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XIX. THE ABASEMENT OF EUROPE.
XIX. THE ABASEMENT OF EUROPE.
16th to 18th Centuries. It is not too much to say that the history of the foreign relations of Algiers and Tunis is one long indictment, not of one, but of all the maritime Powers of Europe, on the charge of cowardice and dishonour. There was some excuse for dismay at the powerful armaments and invincible seamanship of Barbarossa or the fateful ferocity of Dragut; but that all the maritime Powers should have cowered and cringed as they did before the miserable braggarts who succeeded the heroic
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XX. THE UNITED STATES AND TRIPOLI.
XX. THE UNITED STATES AND TRIPOLI.
1803-5. These dark days of abasement were pierced by one ray of sunlight; the United States refused the tribute demanded by the Barbary Rovers. From its very birth the new nation had, in common with all other maritime countries, accepted as a necessary evil a practice it was now full time to abolish. As early as 1785 the Dey of Algiers found in American commerce a fresh field for his ploughing; and of all traders, none proved so welcome as that which boasted of its shipping, yet carried not an o
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XXI. THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
XXI. THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.
1816. Nelson was in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as every one knows, but the suppression of the Barbary Corsairs formed no part of his instructions. Twice, indeed, he sent a ship of war to inquire into the complaints of the consuls, but without effect; and then on the glorious Twenty-First of October, 1805, the great admiral fell in the supreme hour of victory. Collingwood made no attempt to deal with the Algerine difficulty, beyond sending a civilian agent and a
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XXII. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA.
XXII. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA.
1830-1881. The successes of the English and American fleets had produced their effects, not so much in arresting the course of piracy, as in encouraging the European States to defy the pirates. The coup de grâce was administered by France—the vis-à-vis , the natural opponent of the Algerine Corsairs, and perhaps the chief sufferer by their attacks. A dispute in April, 1827, between the French consul and the Dey, in which the former forgot the decencies of diplomatic language, and the latter lost
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The Story of the Nations.
The Story of the Nations.
Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS take pleasure in announcing that they have in course of publication a series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic manner the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history. In the story form the current of each national life will be distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes will be presented for the reader in their philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal history. It
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PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
THE SCRIPTURES, HEBREW AND CHRISTIAN. ARRANGED AND EDITED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. Editors. Rev. EDWARD T. BARTLETT, D.D., Dean of the Divinity School of the P. E. Church in Philadelphia, and Mary Wolfe, Prof. of Ecclesiastical History. Rev. JOHN P. PETERS, Ph.D., Professor of Old Testament Literature and Language in the Divinity School of the P. E. Church in Philadelphia, and Professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania. The work is to be completed in three volumes
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