m deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.

Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments
within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro ("avia bien aprovado
con el Conde Pedro Navarro"), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an
innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.

"Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
on the day of San Hieronymo in this year."

("Salio un dia a el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Espanoles
desmandados dio en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
vieron que Barbarossa los desbarato casi sin dano y con mucho facilidad
mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
deste ano.")

This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when