Van Geest.

Still destined for the clerical profession, Don John, at the age of
eighteen, to avoid compliance with Philip's commands, made his escape
to Barcelona. It was his intention to join the Maltese expedition.
Recalled peremptorily by Philip, he was for a short time in disgrace;
but afterwards made his peace with the monarch by denouncing some of the
mischievous schemes of Don Carlos. Between the Prince-royal and the
imperial bastard, there had always been a deep animosity, the Infante
having on one occasion saluted him with the most vigorous and offensive
appellation which his illegitimate birth could suggest. "Base-born or
not," returned Don John, "at any rate I had a better father than yours."
The words were probably reported to Philip and doubtless rankled in his
breast, but nothing appeared on the surface, and the youth rose rapidly
in favor. In his twenty-third year, he was appointed to the command of
the famous campaign against the insurgent Moors of Granada. Here he
reaped his first laurels, and acquired great military celebrity. It is
difficult to be dazzled by such glory. He commenced his operations by
the expulsion of nearly all the Moorish inhabitants of Granada, bed-
ridden men, women, and children, together, and the cruelty inflicted,
the sufferings patiently endured in that memorable deportation, were
enormous. But few of the many thousand exiles survived the horrid march,
those who were so unfortunate as to do so being sold into slavery by
their captors. Still a few Moors held out in their mountain fastnesses,
and two years long the rebellion of this handful made head against the,
power of Spain. Had their envoys to the Porte succeeded in their
negotiation, the throne of Philip might have trembled; but Selim hated
the Republic of Venice as much as he loved the wine of Cyprus. While the
Moors were gasping out their last breath in Granada and Ronda, the Turks
had wrested the island of Venus from the grasp of the haughty Republic