SEA-WOLVES OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN
SEA-WOLVES OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN
THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
BY COMMANDER
E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W
1910
TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY
TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT
I OWE SO MUCH
MORETHAN ANY ONE—SAVE I—CAN IMAGINE...
TO MY WIFE
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
PREFACE
When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tenseexcitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down theways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of theindustry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It isvery different when a book has been completed. The launching has beenarranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers wayand slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain tofloat, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may betowed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust therein silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one manalone—to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualificationshe will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is—interest. Asthe weeks lengthened into months, andviii these multiplied themselves to thetale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened thatthat which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogetherindifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbershave always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerousbrethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenthcentury we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population ofSouthern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselvesupon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished wasnatural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pureand simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds ofthese men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of theirapparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciouslymaintained themselves against the principalities and the powers ofChristendom always hungering for their destruction.
The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the BritishInfantry, “of never knowing when they were beaten,” seems to have alsocharacterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation ofKheyr-ed-Din Barbarossaix when ex