ot with their
captors?

It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
meant--a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.

We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
already quoted of the historian that "these are the judgments of God, and
things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom," neither can
we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
from doing their duty; we have, however, to ask ourselves this question,
that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?

One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly--if one were tempted
to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
done by the corsairs--it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
in their favour.

But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
At a time when every one was a wa