One thing, however,
is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.
Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
time being.
Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
the Mohammedan conquest.
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