Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/60

 rich resources of the New World, so there was a great opportunity for the Barbarian pirates to go out some little distance into the Atlantic and capture the West Indiamen homeward bound for Cadiz with gold and other treasures. And in addition to these prizes, no less than the merchantmen of Italy, Kheyr-ed-din occasionally made raids on the Spanish coast or even carried off slaves from the Balearic Islands. From end to end these Algerine corsairs were thus masters of the Mediterranean. No commercial ship could pass on her voyages in any safety—even Spanish flagships found themselves being brought captive into Algiers.

True, the small Spanish garrison still remained in Algiers, and because it was immured within a very strong fortress it held out. The time now came for this to be attacked with great vigour. For a period of fifteen days it was bombarded, and at length, after a most stubborn resistance, it was overcome. The stronghold was then pulled down, and Christian prisoners who in the summer season had rowed chained to their seats in the corsair galleys, were in the off-season employed to build with these stones the great mole to protect the harbour of Algiers from the western side. It was a stupendous undertaking, and seven thousand of these unhappy creatures accomplished the work in most of two years.

Nothing succeeds like success, and the corsair prospered in power and possession to such an extent that he was pre-*eminent. This naturally attracted to his dominion many thousands of other followers, and there was thus established not a mere small colony of pirates, but a grand corsair kingdom where the industry of sea-robbery was well organised with its foundries and dockyards, and with every assistance to agriculture, and a firm, hard government to keep the land in fit and proper cultivation.