r-ed-Din Barbarossa
flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
who had dared to act independently of his authority.

The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
denominated in a letter to Philip II. as "that mischievous animal the
people," the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
rights and duties of "the mischievous animal" by these militant persons
was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.

This period has been called "The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs"
because it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never recoiled before
the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone