irst great Turkish admiral.

FOOTNOTE:

[37] See S. Lane-Poole, _The Speeches and Tabletalk of the Prophet
Mohammad_, 168.

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; but the chief commanders at sea were
Dragut, S[=a]lih Reis, Sin[=a]n, and the rest, who, when not called to
join the Captain Pasha's fleet, pursued the art of piracy from the
Barbary coast. Dragut (properly Torgh[=u]d) worked measureless
mischief in the Archipelago and Adriatic, seized Venetian galleys and
laid waste the shores of Italy, till he was caught by Giannettino
Doria, nephew of the great admiral, while unsuspectingly engaged in
dividing his spoils on the Sardinian coast (1540). Incensed to find
his vast empire perpetually harassed by foes so lawless and in
numbers so puny, Charles the Emperor resolved to put down the
Corsairs' trade once and for ever. He had subdued Tunis in 1535, but
piracy still went on. Now he would grapple the head and front of the
offence, and conquer Algiers.

He had no fears of the result; the Corsair city would fall at the mere
sight of his immense flotilla; and in this vainglorious assurance he
set out in October, 1541. He even took Spanish ladies on board to view
his triumph. The season for a descent on the African coast was over,
and every one knew that the chance of effecting anything before the
winter storms should guard the coast from any floating enemy was more
than doubtful; but "the Spaniards commonly move with gravity"; and
besides, Charles had been delayed during a busy summer by his troubles
in Germany and Flanders, and could not get away before.

Now at last he was free; and, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of
Doria and the entreaties of the Pope, to Algiers he would go.
Everything had long been prepared--a month, he believed, at the
outside would finish the matter--in short, go he would. At Spezzia he
embarked on Doria's flagship; the Duke of Alva, of sanguinary memory,
commanded the troops, many of whom had b