It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed out of existence, not once but a hundred times.  But, as has been said already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din.  He watched with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe; he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners, Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea.  “In all the bloody hazards of his life,” to quote once again the words of the Grand Turk, “he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of battle!”

That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived.  Time and again the heavy menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of Christendom.  The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others saw him once more victorious.  But no reverses had the power to damp his ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix, from the ashes of defeat:  to vex the souls of those who held themselves to be the greatest men on earth.

It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for their destruction.  These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his personal dignity.  The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson of “Los Reyes Catholicos,” Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing, and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most vigorous form.  Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.  To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare their forces for an attack on Algiers.