Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/58

 contents were ever permitted to return or to reach their ports of destination.

However, the time came when the Christian States could no longer endure this terrible condition of affairs. And Charles was moved to send a strong force to deal with the evil. Ten thousand seasoned troops were sent in a large fleet of galleys to Northern Africa, and at last the wasp was killed. For Barbarossa, with his 1500 men, was defeated, and he himself was slain while fighting boldly. Unfortunately the matter ended there, and the troops, instead of pressing home their victory and wiping the Barbarian coast clean of this Moorish dirt, left Algiers severely alone and returned to their homes. Had they, instead, ruthlessly sought out this lawless piratical brood, the troublesome scourge of the next three centuries would probably never have caused so many European ships and so many English and foreign sailors and others to end their days under the lash of tyrannical monsters.