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Pirates
But the greatest scourge of the sea was piracy, which had been endemic in the Mediterranean from the earliest times. Minorcans themselves had been founder members of the art, but later they were more often on the receiving end of attacks. The climax came with the virtual destruction of Mahon by the archpirate Barbarossa in 1535, and a like destruction of Ciudadela by the Turks in 1558.
In September 1535 a fleet flying the colours of the Emperor CharlesV entered the port, and  the townsmen prepared to welcome the ally. When it was found to be Barbarossa flying false colours, the gates of the then-walled town were closed, and the small population prepared to defend themselves against double their numbers of invaders. Mahon fell a few days later after great slaughter, and 600 captives were sold into slavery.
In 1558 a Turkish fleet of 140 ships under Mustapha Piali attacked Ciudadela and landed 15,000 troops. Minorcans could not raise more than 700 armed men, but put up a gallant defence within the walled town. The invaders razed much of the town to the ground, butchering the inhabitants or selling them into slavery. 
The obelisk in the Borne Square commemorates their gallant defence.
After these two major onslaughts, the building of the new Fort St Philip at Mahon commenced, with smaller forts at Ciudadela and Fornells. Because of pirates, many Minorcans evacuated their coastal villages as being too dangerous, and settled on inland sites which have become the smaller towns of today.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, piracy became more complex and highly organised, and was often carried out in the name of religion. On the one hand were the Muslim Barbary Corsairs and Turks, on the other the Christian Corsairs and Knights of Malta. A more respectable form of lawlessness at sea were the armed merchantmen or privateers of the various powers, licensed by their rulers to plunder enemy ships or seize their passengers, whose lives were relatively safe, but who were released at a fixed tariff. Gentlemen hurriedly unloaded their jewellery on to female passengers, who were completely safe from molestation. The alternative to ransom was to be sold as a galley slave. Only renegades could be hanged at the yard-arm at the Captain's discretion.

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