V. 1535. and three hundred cannon, mostly brass, which were plant- BO O K ed on the ramparts; a prodigious number in that age, and a remarkable proof of the strength of the fort, as well as of the greatness of the corsair's power. The Emperor marched into the Goletta through the breach, and turning to MuleyHascen who attended him," Here," says he, "is a gate open to you, by which you shall return to take possession of your dominions." BARBAROSSA, though he felt the full weight of the blow which he had received, did not, however, lose courage, or abandon the defence of Tunis. But as the walls were of great extent, and extremely weak; as he could not depend on the fidelity of the inhabitants, nor hope that the Moors and Arabs would sustain the hardships of a siege, he boldly determined to advance with his army, which amounted to fifty thousand men, towards the Imperial camp, and to decide the fate of his kingdom by the issue of a battle. This resolution he communicated to his principal officers, and representing to them the fatal consequences which might follow, if ten thousand Christian slaves, whom he had shut up in the citadel, should attempt to mutiny during the absence of the army, he proposed as a necessary precaution for the public security, to massacre them without mercy before he began his march. They all approved warmly of his intention to fight; but inured as they were, in their piratical depredations, to scenes of bloodshed and cruelty, the barbarity of his proposal concerning the slaves, filled them with horror; and Barbarossa, rather from the dread of irritating them, than swayed by motives of humanity, consented to spare the lives of the slaves. sa's army. By this time the Emperor had begun to advance towards Defeats Tunis; and though his troops suffered inconceivable hard- Barbarosships in their march, over burning sands, destitute of wa ter, and exposed to the intolerable heat of the sun, they soon came up with the enemy. The Moors and Arabs, emboldened by their vast superiority in number, immediately t Epistres de Princes, par Ruscelli, p. 119, &c. BOOK rushed on to the attack with loud shouts, but their undisci V. 1535. Tunis sur renders. plined courage could not long stand the shock of regular bat. talions; and though Barbarossa, with admirable presence of mind, and by exposing his own person to the greatest dan gers, endeavoured to rally them, the rout became so general, that he himself was hurried along with them in their flight back to the city. There he found every thing in the ut most confusion; some of the inhabitants flying with their families and effects; others ready to set open their gates to the conqueror; the Turkish soldiers preparing to retreat; and the citadel, which in such circumstances might have af forded him some refuge, already in the possession of the Christian captives. These unhappy men, rendered desperate by their situation, had laid hold on the opportunity which Barbarossa dreaded. As soon as his army was at some distance from the town, they gained two of their keepers, by whose assistance, knocking off their fetters, and bursting open their prisons, they overpowered the Turkish garrison, and turned the artillery of the fort against their former masters. Barbarossa, disappointed and enraged, exclaiming sometimes against the false compassion of his officers, and sometimes condemning his own imprudent compliance with their opinion, fled precipitately to Bona, MEANWHILE Charles, satisfied with the easy and almost bloodless victory which he had gained, and advancing slowly with the precaution necessary in an enemy's country, did not yet know the whole extent of his own good fortune. But at last, a messenger dispatched by the slaves acquainted him with the success of their noble effort for the recovery of their liberty; and at the same time deputies arrived from the town in order to present him the keys of their gates, and to implore his protection from military violence. While he was deliberating concerning the proper measures for this purpose, the soldiers, fearing that they should be deprived of the booty which they had expected, rushed suddenly, and without orders, into the town, and began to kill and plunder without distinction. It was then too late to restrain their cruelty, their avarice, or licentiousness. All the outrages of which soldiers are capable in the fury of a storm, all the V. 1535. excesses of which men can be guilty when their passions are B O O K heightened by the contempt and hatred which difference in manners and religion inspire, were committed. Above thirty thousand of the innocent inhabitants perished on that unhappy day, and ten thousand were carried away as slaves. Muley-Hascen took possession of a throne surrounded with carnage, abhorred by his subjects on whom he had brought such calamities, and pitied even by those whose rashness had been the occasion of them. The Emperor lamented the fatal accident which had stained the lustre of his victory; and amidst such a scene of horror there was but one spectacle that afforded him any satisfaction. Ten thousand Christian slaves, among whom were several persons of distinc tion, met him as he entered the town; and falling on their knees, thanked and blessed him as their deliverer. At the same time that Charles accomplished his promise Restores to the Moorish King, of re-establishing him in his domi- the exiled king to his nions, he did not neglect what was necessary for bridling the throne. power of the African corsairs, for the security of his own subjects, and for the interest of the Spanish crown: in order to gain these ends, he concluded a treaty with MuleyHascen on the following conditions; that he should hold the kingdom of Tunis in fee of the crown of Spain, and do homage to the emperor as his liege lord; that all the Christian slaves now within his dominions, of whatever nation, should be set at liberty without ransom; that no subject of the Emperor's should for the future be detained in servitude; that no Turkish corsair should be admitted into the ports of his dominions; that free trade, together with the public exercise of the Christian religion, should be allowed to all the Emperor's subjects; that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta, but that all the other sea-ports in the kingdom which were fortified should be put into his hands; that Muley-Hascen should pay annually twelve thousand crowns for the subsistence of the Spanish garrison in the Goletta; that he should enter into no alliance with any of the Emperor's enemies, and should present to him every year as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses, and V. 1535. BOOK as many hawks". Having thus settled the affairs of Africa; chastised the insolence of the corsairs; secured a safe retreat for the ships of his subjects, and a proper station to his own fleets, on that coast from which he was most infested Aug. 17. by piratical depredations; Charles embarked again for Europe, the tempestuous weather, and sickness among his troops, not permitting him to pursue Barbarossa *. The glory which the emperor acquired. By this expedition, the merit of which seems to have been estimated in that age, rather by the apparent generosity of the undertaking, the magnificence wherewith it was conducted, and the success which crowned it, than by the importance of the consequences that attended it, the Emperor attained a greater height of glory than at any other period of his reign. Twenty thousand slaves whom he freed from bondage, either by his arms, or by his treaty with MuleyHasceny, each of whom he clothed and furnished with the means of returning to their respective countries, spread all over Europe the fame of their benefactor's munificence, extolling his power and abilities with the exaggeration flowing from gratitude and admiration. In comparison with him the other Monarchs of Europe made an inconsiderable figure. They seemed to be solicitous about nothing but their private and particular interests; while Charles, with an elevation of sentiment which became the chief Prince in Christendom, appeared to be concerned for the honour of the Christian name, and attentive to the public security and welfare. u Du Mont Corps Diplomat. ii. 128. Summonte Hist. di Napoli, iv. 89. x Joh. Etropii Diarium Expedition. Tunetanæ, ap. Scard. v. ii. p. 320, &c. Jovii Histor. lib. xxxiv. 153, &c. Sandov. ii. 154, &c. Vertot Hist. de Cheval. de Malthe. Epistres des Princes, par Ruscelli, traduites par Belleforest, p. 119, 120, &c. Anton. Pontii Consentini Hist. Belli adv. Barbar ap. Mathæi Analecta. y Summonte Hist. de Nap. vol. iv. p. 103. THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. BOOK VI. VI. 1535. The causes of a new war be tween the emperor cis. UNFORTUNATELY for the reputation of Francis I. BOOK among his contemporaries, his conduct, at this juncture, appeared a perfect contrast to that of his rival, as he laid hold on the opportunity afforded him, by the Emperor's having turned his whole force against the common enemy of Christendom, to revive his pretensions in Italy, and to plunge Europe into a new war. The treaty of Cambray, as has and Franbeen observed, did not remove the causes of enmity between the two contending Princes; it covered up, but did not extinguish the flames of discord. Francis in particular, who waited with impatience for a proper occasion of recovering the reputation as well as the territories which he had lost, continued to carry on his negociations in different courts against the Emperor, taking the utmost pains to heighten the jealousy which many Princes entertained of his power or designs, and to inspire the rest with the same suspicion and fear among others, he applied to Francis Sforza, who, though indebted to Charles for the possession of the dutchy of Milan, had received it on such hard conditions, as rendered him not only a vassal of the Empire, but a tributary dependent upon the Emperor. The honour of having married the Emperor's niece, did not reconcile him to this ignominious state of subjection, which became so intolerable even to Sforza, though a weak and poor-spirited Prince, that |