stant orders for the equipment of such vessels as were in the port, with which he put to sea on the fifteenth day after his arrival:-and Charles, returning to Europe in triumph as conqueror of Tunis, was amazed by the intelligence that his indefatigable adversary (of whose fate he had been hitherto uncertain) had suddenly appeared with thirty-two galleys off the Balearic Islands, which were wholly unprepared for this hostile visitation. The governor of Minorca, attempting to oppose the invaders in the field, was overpowered and killed: the citadel of Mahon surrendered: and Barbarossa, after pillaging the whole island, and destroying the town, returned to Africa with his booty and prisoners. But his stay was not of long duration again committing his interests to the care of his faithful lieutenant, Hassan, he sailed from Algiers (whither he never returned ;) and after narrowly escaping the encounter of a greatly superior force under Doria, arrived early in 1536 at Constantinople, whither Soliman had lately returned victorious from Persia. His great patron, Ibrahim, was now no more: but neither this change, nor the loss of Tunis, diminished the favour with which the Sultan continued to regard him he was at once replaced in the direction of the dockyard and the arsenal: and a few months after his arrival, the removal of Kemankesh Ahmed made room for his elevation to the dignity of capitanpasha, the powers of which he had for some time virtually exercised.

"The infidels of Venice" (says the Turkish historiographer) "are noted for their vast wealth and commerce, * and not less so for their treachery and disregard of good faith. As their dominions adjoin those of the Porte, and their trade is chiefly with our countries, they generally preserve a show of friendship; yet none are in truth more inveterate against the professors of Islam." Since 1503 they had remained at peace with the Porte; and this good understanding had been promoted by the services of Aloysio Gritti, and by the interest of the grand

vizir Ibrahim, who had been born a subject of the republic. But both those powerful safeguards were now withdrawn, Gritti having been assassinated by Mailath, the vaivado of Transylvania, a short time before the disgrace and death of Ibrahim; and the pacific counsels of Ayaz, the new grand-vizir, were overruled by the vehement representations of Barbarossa, who was eager to efface, by fresh achievements, the remembrance of his disaster at Tunis. His arguments derived additional weight from the assistance rendered on various occasions by Venice to the enemies of the Porte, and from some casual encounters at sea between the vessels of the signory and the Turkish galleys; the excuses of the senate were disregarded by the sultan, and war was proclaimed in the summer of 1537.

The standards of the three vassal kingdoms of the republic, Candia, Cyprus, and the Morea, still floated from their lofty flagstaffs in the Place of St Mark; but the last had been reduced by the progressive conquests of the Turks to the two fortresses of Monembasia and Napoli, on the mainland. The Ionian Islands, however, with the exception of Santa Maura, were still subject to Venetian rule; and nearly the whole of the Cyclades were held as hereditary fiefs, under the signory, by various patrician families, the ancestors of which had subdued them after the capture of Constantinople, in the fourth crusade, (A.D. 1204.*) But these extensive insular possessions could be secured only by a continued supremacy at sea; and the Venetian squadron, under Pisani, in the Adriatic, was far from capable of coping with that commanded by Barbarossa. At the breaking out of hostilities, he was cruising with 135 war-galleys, and a vast fleet of transports, on the coast of Apulia, where he had lately landed LutfiPasha with 25,000 men for the invasion of Italy; but the Venetian war recalled both the capitan-pasha and his colleague to the eastern shore of the Adriatic, to co-operate with the

carried by storm on the seventh day; and Barbarossa, who, during the siege, had been reinforced by the junction of ninety galleys from Constantinople, besides the squadron of twenty under Salih, resumed his voyage with this augmented force, now numbering one hundred and fifty sail, towards Crete. The capture of the islands of Skyro, Andro, Serpho, and Scarpanto, scarcely delayed the progress of the fleet: but the Christian armament was not to be found in the Candiote waters : and the pasha vented his disappointment by a destructive descent on the island. The open towns were every where laid in ashes; but the strong fortifications of Canea and Retimo defied his attacks; and his departure was hastened by the intelligence that Doria, with the fleets of Spain and Italy, had at length made his appearance at the rendezvous at Corfu.

Khair-ed-deen instantly made sail for the Ionian sea, directing his course towards Prevesa, at the mouth of the Gulf of Arta, which had recently been cannonaded by a division of the confederate fleet under the Venetian patriarch Grimani; and scarcely had he reached his destination, when the whole Christian navy was descried steering in the same direction. Their combined forces considerably outnumbered those of the Ottomans, amounting to 167 sail of carracks and galleys, while Barbarossa (who had weakened himself by detaching numerous cruisers) had only 122 to oppose to them, all of which were galleys. As the pasha's object was the defence of Prevesa, the fortifications of which had been damaged by the previous attack, he had run into the gulf before the arrival of the enemy, and landed part of his troops and artillery on the beach in front of the town: while with his vessels drawn up in line, he offered battle at the mouth of the strait. The armaments confronted each other during three days, without any hostile movement on either side: and Doria, finding the attempt on Prevesa hopeless, at length (Sept. 27) gave the signal of retreat. In the repassage of the straits, a partial encounter took place between the Ve netian carracks and galleons, and the division of galleys under Torghoud; the Turks, galled by the superior fire of their ponderous antagonists, retired in confusion within the bay

but Doria still refused the entreaties of the Venetian admiral Capello to be permitted to follow up this advantage, and stood out to sea towards Santa Maura. "But the pasha” (we again quote Hadji-Khalfa) "having in a dream seen many large fishes swimming out of the gulf," interpreted this as a favourable omen, and sallied the next day from the straits with his whole force in pursuit-and Doria, yielding to the instances of his officers, no longer declined the combat. Great part of the day was spent in distant manoeuvring, the wind and the swell being unfavourable to the navigation of the galleys; but at the approach of evening the sea fell calm, (in consequence, as we are assured by the Turkish writer, of Barbarossa having thrown into the waves papers inscribed with texts from the Koran,) and the action then commenced in earnest. The heavy galleons of the Venetians, lying becalmed and immoveable, were separately enveloped and assailed by swarms of the hostile galleys; while Barbarossa in person, boldly leading a select squadron through the intervals of the line, cut off these unwieldy floating castles from the support of their own light vessels. Doria, whose conduct on this occasion was far from worthy of his former fame, still continued to hover at a distance from the fight, without venturing on a decided movement for the extrication of the besieged galleons, the resistance of which was at length overpowered by the number and pertinacity of their assailants. Two of these large vessels took fire, and were blown up, with the greatest part of their crews: four fell into the hands of the Moslems, and the rest were only saved from a similar fate by a sudden and violent squall, which, with the approach of night, put an end to the conflict. Barbarossa endeavoured to improve his success by an attack on the galleys under Doria; but without awaiting the onset, they gave way at his approach with such celerity, that two Spanish vessels only fell into his hands; and the whole Christian fleet, extinguishing their lights to conceal their course, made the best of their way to Corfu," so disorderedly," says Knolles, "and in such haste, sparing neither sayle nor oare, that it seemed rather a shameful flight than an orderlyretreat."

Such was the battle of Prevesa, (often called by Italian writers the Battle of the Galleons,) which HadjiKhalfa characterizes as "the grand victory of Khair-ed-deen, and the most astonishing battle ever fought at sea!" It was in truth far more important in its results than in the actual amount of loss sustained by the defeated squadron; for it at once gave the victors the sovereignty of the sea, which they retained almost undisputed till the battle of Lepanto, fought in nearly the same waters, exactly thirtythree years later, (Oct. 7, 1571.) The brunt of the engagement, as well as the weight of the discomfiture, fell almost wholly on the Venetians, whose commanders loudly inveighed against the backwardness of Doria as the sole cause of the discomfiture; while he recriminated, by condemning their refusal to admit Spanish troops on board their vessels, which were thus unfit to come to close quarters with the strong. ly manned galleys of their opponents. The Ottoman fleet, in the mean time, on its return to the shores of Epirus, after the battle, had been driven out of its course and shattered by a violent storm, in which many of the gal leys foundered or were dashed to pieces on the rocks, the remainder with diffi culty gaining the port of Avlona: but Doria, in spite of the indignant remonstrances of Capello, refused to renew the attack while the enemy were thus disabled, and sailed with his whole force to the north, whence, after taking and garrisoning CastelNovo, a strong fortress belonging to the Turks on the Ragusan frontier, he withdrew into harbour for the winter.*

Meanwhile the tidings of the victory had been received at Constantinople with rejoicings and illuminations; and the sultan, whom the news reached during his absence on a hunting excursion at Yanboli in Thrace, showered honours and rewards on Barba

rossa and his officers on their return with the fleet to the Bosphorus. But the magnitude of the advantage gained was more clearly shown by the arrival, in the following spring, of a Venetian envoy commissioned to sue for peace on behalf of the Signory; which, since the maritime supremacy of the Adri. atic was lost, no longer felt secure within their hitherto inaccessible lagunes. The negotiation was protracted through the following year:but the fears of the Venetians were quickened by the re-capture of CastelNovo, which Barbarossa had taken by storm, (August 10, 1539,) after twenty-six days' siege, slaughtering nearly the whole Spanish garrison: and the treaty was at length signed in May 1540. The price to Venice of this pacification was the payment of 300,000 ducats, the cession of all the isles captured by Barbarossa, and the further surrender of the almost impregnable fortresses of Monembasia and Napoli di Romania, which had defied all the efforts of the Turks during the war, and were the only possessions still held under the banner of St Mark in the Morea.†

After the recovery of Castel- Novo and the peace with Venice, Barbarossa appears to have remained at Constantinople in the tranquil enjoyment of his honours till the summer of 1541, when he was again roused to action by the intelligence of the vast armament with which Charles V. and Doria were preparing to assail Algiers. He sailed accordingly in all haste with eighty galleys for the African coast; but the same hurricane which overwhelmed the Christian fleet and army with ruin on their landing, drove him into an intermediate port, where he remained weatherbound more than a month, till the emperor had returned with his shattered forces to Europe. Without further pursuing his voyage, he retraced his course to the Bosphorus, which he entered in