"
There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
which they refused to do--"but they parted without bloody noses"--is
Morgan's comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies
to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
a pitched battle. "But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
His divine providence and infinite wisdom," says Haedo. The connection is
somewhat hard to establish.
In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks.
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