The raid on La Goulette of 1609 was a naval attack by Spanish captain Luis Fajardo, at the head of a Spanish fleet and a French ship, on La Goulette, the main port of Ottoman Tunisia. The attack was done in response to previous acts of Barbary pirates based off Tunis and led to the destruction of the local fleet in port, which included English renegades like Jack Ward and Francis Verney.
The raid was probably the first early modern naval operation executed in the Mediterranean exclusively with sailing ships, like galleons and caravels, without the support of rowing galleys. Galley squads had been increasingly seen in Spain as an unnecessary expense to maintain in great numbers after the Battle of Lepanto, leading Fajardo and to experiment with sailing ships instead.
Background
In January 1609, after several victories against the Dutch in the Atlantic, Fajardo was promoted to the royal council of war. Some months later, during the Expulsion of the Moriscos, Fajardo was ordered to take command of the fleets of Andalusia and Portugal and disrupt the movements of Barbary pirates in North Africa, while leaving Antonio de Oquendo the rest of the effectives to watch the southern Spanish coast. Clearing the North African coasts to dissuade pirates was essential during the Expulsion, as the crown had reports of Barbary sympathizers and agents hiding among the Morisco population, who often encouraged and assisted them in attacking the coasts of Spain in order to fuel the lucrative Barbary slave trade.
The same year it was fount that Zymen Danseker, a Dutch privateer in the service of the Muslims, hounded around Cape St. Vincent with a 18-ship fleet and had already taken several Spanish merchants. Marking him as the first target to capture, Fajardo stepped up to hunt him down. He proposed to gather a fleet of sailing ships, intending not only to counter Danseker's usage of western galleons, but also rehabilitate the reputation of Spain's Atlantic fleet, mostly composed by these vessels, after the defeat of Gibraltar in 1607. Juan found and captured the ship near the island of Limacos, finding out it belonged to Danseker's fleet and was carrying a cargo of weapons, with a crew of English and Jews.
Resuming the journey, the Spanish explorers sighted then eight sailing ships and four galleys refuged in Algiers. However, Fajardo realized that foreseeable winds would allow his ships to enter the port, but not to leave; without galleys to tow them, he risked being trapped in the well defended harbor of Algiers.
Next morning, a new African ship arrived to La Goulette ignoring the recent events. Warned about the Christians by the fortress' artillery,