Chap. XII In Which the Captive Recounts His Life and Adventures
‘In a certain place among the mountains of Leon, my family had its origin; more beholden to the liberality of nature than to the smiles of fortune: though, amidst the narrowness of circumstances, which prevails in that country, my father had the reputation of being rich, and really was so, had he possessed the art of preserving, as he practised the means of spending his estate. This liberal and profuse disposition was owing to his having been a soldier in his youth, the army being a school in which the miser becomes generous, and the benevolent man grows prodigal; for a covetous soldier is a monster which is rarely seen. My father exceeded the bounds of liberality, and bordered upon those of prodigality; a disposition of very little service to a married man who has children to succeed him in rank as well as name: and he had no less than three; all of them sons, already at an age to chuse for themselves. The old gentleman finding it impossible, as he said, to resist the bent of his inclination, was resolved to deprive himself of the means that induced and enabled him to spend so lavishly, by giving up his estate; as without money Alexander himself must have seemed frugal.
‘One day, therefore, calling us all three together into his chamber, he delivered himself in these or the like words: “Sons, to say I love you, is no more than to say and know you are my own children; though it would seem that I do not love you, by my squandering away the fortune which is your due. But that you may be henceforth convinced that I love you like a true parent, rather than seek your destruction like a step-father, I am resolved to execute a plan which I have formed a good while ago, and digested with the most mature deliberation. You are now of an age to chuse settlements for yourselves, or at least to pitch upon employments which, in your riper years, may conduce to your honour and advantage. My intention is to divide my estate into four equal parts, three of which you shall receive among you, in equal shares, without the least difference or distinction; and the fourth I will reserve for my own sustenance and support, while Heaven will be pleased to protract the days of my life. But after you have received your portions, I should be glad to find you inclined to follow the paths which I shall propose. We have a saying in Spain, which I believe is very true, as indeed all proverbs are, because they are short sentences dictated by long and sage experience; that which I mean, contains no more than these words: The church, the court, or the sea; as if it more fully expressed the following advice, ‘He that would make his fortune, ought either to dedicate his time to the church, go to sea as a merchant, or attach himself to the court,’ for it is commonly observed that, ‘The king’s crumb is worth the baron’s batch.’ This I mention, because I wish and desire that one of you would follow letters, another merchandize, and a third serve his sovereign in the field, since it is difficult to obtain an office at court: and although much wealth cannot be expected, there is a great deal of valour and reputation to be acquired in war. In eight days I will give each of you his share, in ready-money, without defrauding you of one farthing, as you will see by my distribution. Tell me, therefore, if you are willing to follow my advice in what I have proposed?” said my father, addressing himself to me as the eldest. After having dissuaded him from parting with his estate, and desired him to spend as much of it as he pleased, observing, that we were young men, and capable of making our own fortunes, I concluded with saying, I would obey his will, and for my own part, chuse to serve God and my king, in adhering to the exercise of arms. My second brother made the same offer, proposing to set sail for the Indies, and employ his stock of ready-money in traffick. The youngest, and I believe the wisest, said he would qualify himself for the church, by going and finishing his studies at Salamanca.
‘We having thus agreed in the choice of our different employments, our father embraced us all affectionately, and within the time he had proposed, performed his promise of giving us our portions, which to the best of my remembrance amounted to three thousand ducats each; for an uncle of ours paid ready-money for the whole estate, that it might not be alienated from the family. In one day, all three took leave of our worthy father; when I thinking it a piece of inhumanity to leave him so straitened in his old age, prevailed upon him to accept two thousand of the three I had received, as the remainder was sufficient to accommodate me with all the necessaries of a soldier. Each of my brothers, induced by my example, gave him back one-third of their shares; so that he remained possessed of four thousand ducats in cash, and the value of three thousand more in land, which he did not chuse to sell. At length, I say, we took leave of him, and that uncle whom I have mentioned, not without great concern and many tears on all sides; they charging us to seize every opportunity of making them acquainted with our adventures, either in prosperity or adversity. Having given this promise, and received their embraces and blessing, one took the road to Salamanca, another went to Seville, and I set out for Alicant, where I understood there was a ship taking in a lading of wool for Genoa. Two and twenty years are now elapsed since I left my father’s house; and during all that time, though I have written several letters, I never received the least information concerning him or my brothers. What hath happened to myself within that period, I will now briefly relate.
‘Embarking at Alicant, I had a favourable passage to Genoa, from whence I went to Milan, where I provided myself with arms and some gay military furniture. Then I departed for Piedmont, with a resolution of inlisting in the service; and being upon the road to Alexandria de la Paglia, was informed that the great duke of Alva was on his march into Flanders. Upon receiving this intimation, I changed my design, attended him to the Low Countries, served in all his campaigns, and was present at the death of the counts Egmont and Horn. There I obtained an ensign’s commission in the company of a famous captain of Guadalajara, whose name was Diego de Urbina: but after I had been some time in Flanders, the news arrived of the league between his Holiness Pope Pius the Fifth of happy memory, and the Spanish monarchy, against their common enemy the Turk, who about that time had, by means of his fleet, made a conquest of the famous island of Cyrus, which was under the dominion of the Venetians; a most lamentable and unfortunate loss. It was certainly known that the most serene Don John of Austria, natural brother to our good King Philip, was to be general of this league; and the vast preparations for this war were publickly reported. All these rumours raised and excited within me the desire and resolution of being present in a campaign of such expectation; and though I had strong hopes, and indeed certain promises, of being promoted to the rank of a captain as soon as a vacancy should happen, I chose to quit that prospect, and go, as I actually did, to Italy; and luckily for me, Don John of Austria was then at Genoa, just going to embark for Naples, in order to join the Venetian fleet, which he afterwards found at Messina. In short, I served in that most happy campaign, and was advanced to the rank of captain of foot, which honourable post I obtained more by good fortune than merit, and that day which was so fortunate for Christendom, on which the world was convinced of the error they had espoused in believing the Turks invincible by sea; on that day, I say, when the Ottoman pride and insolence were humbled and broke among so many happy Christians there present, (and sure those who fell were happier than the living victors!) I alone was unfortunate; for, instead of receiving a naval crown, which would have been my reward, had I lived in the Roman ages, on the night that succeeded that glorious day, I found myself a captive loaded with chains! And this was the cause of my misfortune: Uchali, King of Algiers, a bold and fortunate corsair, having attacked and mastered the capitan galley of Malta, in which there remained only three knights alive, and these desperately wounded; the vessel commanded by John Andrea Doria, in which my company was stationed, hastened to her relief, and I doing my duty on that occasion, leaped into the enemy’s ship, which disengaging herself immediately from our galley, that was grappled with her, my soldiers were prevented from following their officer, and I found myself alone among my foes, whom, by reason of their numbers, I could not resist; therefore was obliged to submit after having been almost covered over with wounds; and Uchali, as you have heard, gentlemen, having saved himself with his whole squadron, I remained his prisoner, the only sad person amidst the general joy, and captive among so many that were set free; for full fifteen thousand Christians who came into the action chained to the Turkish oars, that day recovered their long wished for liberty.
‘I was carried to Constantinople, where Selim, the grand Turk, created my master general of the sea, for having done his duty in the battle, and as a proof of his valour brought off the high standard of Malta. Next year, which was that of seventy-two, I rowed in the capitan galley of the Three Lanthorns, at Navarino, where I saw and observed the Christians lose the opportunity of taking the whole Turkish fleet in the harbour; for, all the Levantines and Janissaries belonging to it laid their account with being attacked in port, and had actually got in readiness their knapsacks and passamaques, (which are a kind of shoes) in order to go on shore, and seek their safety in flight, without waiting for the assault; such was the consternation that prevailed among them! But Heaven ordained things to happen in another manner; not through any error or neglect of the general who commanded the expedition, but on account of the sins of Christendom; it being the will and permission of God, that we should never want executioners to chastise us. In short, Uchali retreated to Modon, which is an island almost contiguous to Navarino, where he disembarked his men, fortified the mouth of the harbour, and remained until Don John set sail on his return. In this expedition, the galley called the Prize, commanded by a son of the famous corsair Barbarossa, was taken by the capitan galley of Naples called the She-wolf, the commander of which was that thunderbolt of war, that father of his soldiers, that fortunate and invincible chief, Don Alvaro de Basan, marquis of Santa Cruz: and I cannot help mentioning what happened at the taking of this prize. The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his captives so inhumanly, that when the rowers perceived the She-wolf ready to board, and in a fair way of taking her, they quitted their oars all at once, and seizing the captain, who stood upon the strentrel102, calling to them to row lustily, they tossed him forwards from bench to bench, and bit him so severely as he went along, that before he passed the main-mast, his soul passed into hell. Such was his barbarity, as I have already observed, and such the revenge which their hatred to him inspired!
‘We returned to Constantinople; and during the following year, which was seventy-three, understood that Don John had taken Tunis, wrested that whole kingdom from the Turks, and put Muley Hamet in possession of the whole; thus cutting off all the hopes of a restoration from Muley Hamida, the most valiant and most cruel Moor of his time. The grand Signior was deeply affected with his loss, and practising that sagacity which is peculiar to all those of his family, clapped up a peace with the Venetians, who were much more desirous of it than he. Next year, being seventy-four, he attacked the goleta and fort, which Don John had left half-finished, near Tunis: and on all these occasions I was present, being tied to the oar, without the least hope of freedom, especially by ransom; for, I was resolved not to write to my father an account of my misfortune. At length, the goleta and fort were both lost, having been besieged by seventy-five thousand Turkish soldiers, regularly paid, and upwards of four hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from the other parts of Africa; this multitude being provided with a vast quantity of warlike stores and ammunition, and attended with such a number of pioneers, that, by throwing handfuls of earth, they might have covered both the places they came to besiege. The goleta, which had been counted impregnable, was first taken; not through any fault of the besieged, who performed all that men could do in its defence, but because experience shewed that trenches could be made with ease in that loose sand, under which, though water was commonly found at the depth of two spans, the Turks, at that time, dug as many fathoms, without finding one drop; and so filling a vast number of sacks, raised their works so high as to overlook the fort; then mounting this cavalier with cannon, kept such a firing as rendered it impossible for the garrison to make any longer defence. It was a common opinion, that our troops ought not to have shut themselves up in the goleta, but opposed the disembarkation in the plain; however, those who talk in that manner, speak at random, and must be persons of small experience in such affairs; for, if the whole garrison in both places scarce amounted to seven thousand soldiers, how could such a small number, though ever so valiant, take the field, and at the same time defend the forts, against such a multitude of foes? And how could the forts be possibly maintained without supplies, in an enemy’s country, when they were hemmed in by such a numerous and obstinate army? But others thought, and I am of the same opinion, that Heaven manifested a particular grace and favour to Spain, in permitting them to destroy that rendezvous and pretence of mischief, that sink, spunge, and devourer of infinite sums of money, which were there unprofitably spent, without serving any other purpose than that of preserving the memory of its being the most happy conquest of the invincible Charles the Fifth: as if it was necessary for those stones to support his fame, which is already immortal. The fort was also yielded, though the Turks won it by inches; for the garrison behaved with such gallantry and resolution, that in two and twenty general assaults, the enemy lost upwards of twenty-five thousand men; and of the three hundred Spanish soldiers that remained alive, they did not make one prisoner who had not been wounded during the siege: a clear and certain proof of the obstinate valour with which the places were defended. A small fort, or tower, that stood in the middle of the lake, under the command of Don Juan Zanoguera, a Valentian knight and celebrated soldier, surrendered upon terms: but, Don Pedro Puertocarrero, general of the goleta, was made prisoner; and though he did all that man could do in defence of the place, he was so deeply affected by the loss of it, that he died of grief on the road to Constantinople, whither they were carrying him captive. The general of the fort, whose name was Gabrio Cerbellon, a Milanese gentleman, a great engineer, and excellent soldier, was likewise taken prisoner; and in these two forts perished many persons of note, among whom was one Pagan d’Oria, a knight of St. John, a gentleman of a most generous disposition, as appeared from his excessive liberality to his brother the famous Juan Andrea d’Oria; and what made his death still more lamentable, was, that he perished by the hands of some Arabs, to whom, seeing the fort already lost, he trusted himself, relying upon their promise to carry him disguised in a Moorish dress, to Tabarca, which is a small port or settlement belonging to the Genoese, who fish for coral on that part of the coast; but those perfidious Arabs cut off his head, which they carried to the general of the Turkish navy, who fulfilled upon them our Castilian proverb, which imports, that though we love the treason, we abhor the traitor; for it was reported, that he ordered them all to be hanged, because they had not brought him alive.
‘Among the Christians who were taken in the fort, was one Don Pedro de Aguilar, a native of some town in Andalousia, who had been an ensign in the garrison, a soldier of great worth and rare endowments, particularly blessed with a happy talent for poetry. This circumstance I mention, because it was his fate to belong to our galley, where he was my companion at the oar, and fellow-slave; and before we departed from that harbour, he composed two songs, by way of epitaph upon the goleta and the fort. As I have them both by heart, I believe it will not be disagreeable to the company if I repeat them.’
When the captive mentioned Don Pedro de Aguilar, Don Fernando looked at his companions, who smiled; and when the stranger was going to repeat the songs, one of the three said to him, ‘Before you proceed, I beg the favour to know what became of that Don Pedro de Aguilar?’—‘All that I know of the matter,’ replied the captive, ’is, that after having staid two years at Constantinople, he made off in the habit of an arnaut103, with a Greek spy: but I do not know whether or not he obtained his liberty, though I believe be succeeded; for about a year after, I saw the same Greek at Constantinople; but I had not an opportunity to enquire about the success of their scheme.’—‘Then I can satisfy you in that particular,’ resumed the cavalier; ‘Don Pedro is my brother, and now lives at home, in good health and easy circumstances, blessed with a wife and three hopeful sons.’——‘Thanks be to God for the great mercies bestowed upon him!’ answered the captive; ‘for, in my opinion, there is no happiness on earth equal to that of liberty regained.’—‘Besides,’ said the gentleman, ‘I retain in my memory the songs which my brother composed.’—‘Be so good, then,’ replied the stranger, ’as to entertain the company with them; for, doubtless, you can repeat them more perfectly than I can.’—‘With all my heart,’ said the cavalier: ‘that upon the goleta runs thus.’