It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
Caesar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
whom his peace had so long been troubled.
One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
effective resistance.
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