by E. Hamilton Currey
In addition to the business of exploration and the battles of the Elizabethan sea-dogs, there was another theatre of operations at about the same time which offered innumerable stories of battle, plunder and conquest. This was the marauding of the Barbery Pirates, the Muslim Corsairs, who ranged from North Africa throughout the Mediterranean, harassing the Christian vessels and fighting pitched sea battles. This was the end of the era of the galley, and the description of the "life" of the galley slaves in this volume is eye-opening to say the least. There is extensive coverage of the most famous and accomplished of the corsairs, Keyr-ed-Din and his exploits, as there is of Andrea Doria; the great Christian Admiral charged by Charles V of Spain with the eradication of the corsairs. While there were many successes in this endeavor, the Barbery Pirates would continue to be a problem in that area of the world until the American Navy came into its own and were able to finally eliminate this menace once and for all. There is great coverage of the battles and tactics of the relative combatants and one gains an immense appreciation of the truly brilliant manouverings of such as Keyr-ed-Din when reading this book. A definite addition to the history of the sea on your bookshelf and an exciting read to boot! We have added to our edition some illustrations of the types of vessels used in these conflicts, taken from David Steel's Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking and Rigging, which had some fine examples. From Chapter 1: "The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most curious and interesting chapter in history. The causes which led to results so deplorable to commerce, civilization, and Christianity are here set forth in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood. When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to “Los Reyes Catolicos,” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil el Chico (or “the little”), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast still known as “el ultimo suspiro del Moro” (the last sigh of the Moor), Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no sympathy for her fallen son: “Thou doest well to weep like a woman for thit which thou daredst not defend as a man,” was her biting—and totally unjust—comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the coast, whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez. Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the followers of the Prophet ha~d dwelt In the land from which Tank had expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had dwelt and held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilization which shone brightly through the mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture, art, and learning, had found generous and discriminating patronage in the courts of Cordoba and Granada. And now all was over; the iron chivalry of the North, had broken in pieces the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else were forced to live in a state of servitude, oppressed by an alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won anti kept by the sword. There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the legacy that they were leaving to their descendants. It is of this legacy that we have to speak. The broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity, living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes, who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816 and even later than that date." And as we can all too easily see, it continues today! A truly thrilling read and a timely reminder.
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