The History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks. Chapters I. to IV.

by Kâtip Çelebi

ATTACK OF ANDREA DORIA UPON CORONE, AND REBELLION OF THE GOVERNOR OF TILMISÁN.

The Sultan Soleiman Khan having in the year 938 (A. D. 1531-2) gone on an expedition into Germany, Charles V., king of Spain, came to Genoa, and suggested to the Genoese government that as the Grand Toork (i. e. the Great Turk) was engaged in war, a favourable opportunity offered to plunder the Roumelian coasts: but his brother Ferdinand, emperor of Germany, despatched a letter to him, intimating that there would be no great merit in attacking two or three castles, and requesting that he would rather come to his assistance by land. With this request he complied; and at the same time resolved to send his fleet, under the command of Andrea, to Motone. In order also to divert the attention of Barbarossa, he sent men to excite the beg of Tilmisan to revolt; and for this purpose he sent fourteen vessels to aid him in an expedition against Algiers. Khair-ad-din was at this time preparing for a voyage to the Sublime Porte; but immediately left his fleet at sea, and marched to meet the enemy by land. The two armies met in a desert, where a battle took place, and Abdullah, the beg of Tilmisan, was routed, and fled back to Tilmisan. At the intercession of certain persons, peace was restored, on the beg’s paying thirty thousand pieces of gold; and Khair-ad-din returned to Algiers. Andrea now, finding the sea clear, sailed towards the coast of the Morea, and attacked and took the fortress of Corone; the Capudan Ahmed Pasha, who had this year gone to sea with eighty vessels, arriving too late to save it.

In the Moghreb districts, Khair-ad-din having reduced the land side, sent his chiefs with fifteen vessels to the Spanish coast, where they burnt and destroyed the towns. Fifteen ships which had formerly been taken by the Spaniards were now found at an island called Kïounlugé, where an engagement took place, in which the Spaniards saved only one of them, and the remaining fourteen were brought to Algiers, where the immense booty they contained was divided.