Intrigues and jealousies delayed for awhile the sailing of the expedition. Navarro strove to obtain the sole command. Ferdinand was often wavering. A mutiny broke out in the army. The soldiers demanded their pay in advance. But the voice of the cardinal calmed the storm, and the soldiers, being promised a part of their pay as soon as they had embarked, hastened to the ships with the merry sound of trumpets. On the 16th of May, 1509, the fleet weighed anchor. Ten galleys, eighty large transports, and many smaller vessels traversed the straits, and on the following day—the Feast of the Ascension—Ximenes with his fleet and army anchored in the port of Mazarquivir. He passed the night in giving his instructions; and though his health and strength were impaired by age, toil, and study, his energy filled the troops with confidence and enthusiasm. He summoned Navarro before him, and entrusted the conduct of the army to him alone, yet the relative positions of the cardinal and the commander were not, after all, clearly defined
The lines were formed in order of battle, when a striking scene presented itself. Oran was to be attacked by sea and land. A mendicant friar was transformed into a chieftain and a hero. Forth he rode, mounted on a mule, with a sword belted over his pontifical robes. Many ecclesiastics surrounded him. Canons and priests were his body-guard. Swords and scimitars hung from their girdles, and before them rode a giant Franciscan on a white charger, bearing the primate's silver cross and the arms of the house of Cisneros. The hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt rose to heaven as the cavalcade advanced; and the cardinal, riding along the ranks, imposed silence and harangued the troops. His words were few, but full of fire. The mothers of Spain, he said, whose children had been dragged into slavery, were prostrate at that moment before the altar of God, praying for success to his soldiers' arms. He desired to share their danger, remembering how many bishops who had preceded him in the see of Toledo had died gloriously on the battle-field.
Officers and men were excited to the utmost by Ximenes's address, but when he was about to place himself at their head, they entreated him with one voice not to expose so precious a life. He retired, therefore, within the fortress of Mazarquivir, and there, in the oratory of St. Michael, implored the God of battles to crown his troops with victory. Scarcely had he entered the fort, when the folly of Navarro compelled the cardinal to interfere. The commander had ordered the cavalry to remain inactive, because the country was so hilly, and if Ximenes had not resolutely insisted on their supporting the foot-soldiers, the day would probably have been lost. With like energy Ximenes condemned any delay as criminal, and prevented Navarro from deferring the combat, as he proposed, to the next day, when the arrival of the chief-vizier of Tremesen with strong re-enforcements would have been dangerous, if not fatal, to the Spaniards' prospect of success.
The infantry, therefore, in four battalions, advanced immediately up the sides of the sierra, shouting, "Santiago, Santiago!" A shower of stones and arrows was hurled on them by the Moors, and the position was obstinately disputed. But a battery of guns playing on the enemy's flank, they wavered and fled, while the Spaniards, in spite of contrary orders, pursued and slaughtered them with great havoc. The fleet, meanwhile, bombarded the city, and, though ill provided with ladders, the Christian troops scaled the walls, planted their colors, and with loud cries of "Santiago y Ximenes!" opened the gates to their comrades. In vain did their general call them off from the work of carnage. No age or sex was spared; till at last, weary with plunder and butchery, they sank down in the streets, and slept beside the corpses of their foes. Four thousand Moors were said to have fallen, and only thirty Spaniards. The booty was counted at half a million of gold ducats.
The cardinal spent the night in praising God, and the next day, proceeding by sea to Oran, made a solemn entry. The troops hailed him as the conqueror, but he was heard to say aloud, "Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam." He set at liberty three hundred Christian captives; and when the entire spoil of the city was presented to him, he reserved nothing for himself, but set apart a portion for the king, and divided the rest among his troops. Sixty pieces of cannon fell into his hands, and it seemed little less than a miracle that a place so defended should have been taken in a few hours. Others affirmed that there had been traitors among the inhabitants, and that Ximenes had gained over to his side some persons who acted as spies and gave him secret intelligence. The mosques were soon converted into churches, and a branch of the inquisition was established, lest convert Jews should hasten from Spain to Oran and renounce the Christian religion with impunity.
It now became a question whether the war should be pushed further into Africa. The people of Tremesen, stung to madness by the fall of Oran, had massacred the Christian merchants and slaughtered even the Jews. But Navarro had grown jealous of Ximenes, and scorned to obey orders issued by a monk. He informed the cardinal that his power expired with the siege of Oran, and that, if he remained with the army any longer, he would be treated as a private individual. To this indignity Ximenes would not submit, yet he had no desire to continue in Africa. A letter of Ferdinand's, which he saw by chance, instructed Navarro to detain him there as long as might be needful; and he suspected that the king wished him to languish and die on a foreign shore. He knew that Ferdinand could ill bear to see the glory of Gonsalvo de Cordova, "the great captain," and his special friend, to be obscured by that of a general in a monk's cowl, but he was not disposed to gratify his royal master by dying before his time.
Just a week after he had landed, the cardinal set sail on his return. He remained seven days at Carthagena; established a line of transports to run between it and Oran, and then departed for Alcalá, where he made his entry with a sort of military triumph. A part of the walls had been broken down for him to pass through, but this honor he declined, and contented himself with entering through the usual gate, preceded by Moorish slaves leading camels laden with booty. The keys of Oran, chandeliers from the mosques, banners, and Arabic MSS. on medicine and astrology were presented to the university; and a tablet was placed in the Mozarabic chapel of the cathedral of Toledo, with an inscription recording the success of the expedition. Some of these curiosities are still shown to visitors in the cathedral; but the fame of Ximenes has little need of such memorials. As a martial expedition was an enterprise least to be expected of him, so it is that which marks him most prominently on the page of history.
The capture of Oran led to further conquests on the coasts of Africa; yet, after all, the declining power of Spain made it difficult to retain what she had acquired, and impossible to extend her dominions. In 1790, after a dreadful earthquake, Oran fell into the hands of the Dey of Algiers. Since then, it has been annexed to the French empire, under conditions more favorable to civilization than it enjoyed under Spanish rule.
One of the conditions attached by Ximenes to the conquest of Oran had been that it should either be annexed to the archbishopric of Toledo, or that the expenses he might incur should be refunded from the treasury. Cabals, however, were raised against him. He was charged with having enriched himself, and the promised conditions seemed likely to stay unfulfilled. He persisted in his claim, wrote to Ferdinand on the subject, and was mortified by seeing a commission appointed to examine his private apartments, in order to ascertain what part of the spoils he had reserved for himself. The account-book, which he handed to the commissioner, was the only reply he made to this indignity. Not long after, the king proposed that he should exchange the archbishopric of Toledo for that of Zaragoza, and yield the primacy to Ferdinand's natural son, a brave warrior and able politician, but a worldly prelate. To this unworthy proposal Ximenes made answer that he would never exchange his see for any other. He was willing to return to the poverty of a cloister, but if he held any see at all it should be that one over which Providence had appointed him to rule.