in scores of desperate
engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.

Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
attack?

"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, "the English
shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his
influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
manoeuvrings.

There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro
Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.

Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from