could show--that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
habit of the sea--was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
"a veritable man of the sea"; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.

When "the Grand Period" came to an end, as it did about the date already
indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.

This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
displaying their sterling qualities.

There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
were by no means universally success