Studies of the Muslim Mediterranean often focus heavily on its sixteenth century context, when the Ottoman state expanded rapidly across the Mediterranean littoral and incorporated much of North Africa and the Balkan coastline into its sphere of influence. Significantly less has been produced about Ottoman naval affairs thereafter; instead, the general assumption seems to be a lengthy decline of Ottoman influence in the region, despite (or perhaps because of) the long, drawn-out conquest of Crete from the 1640s to the 1660s. Given rapid Venetian advances into the eastern Mediterranean during the initial decade of the War of the Holy League (1683-1699), one might even be inclined to think that these declinist assumptions are correct. This presentation challenges this oversimplified picture of the post-1600 Mediterranean world by drawing attention to the life and career trajectory of a much-neglected historical figure: the corsair-turned-Ottoman grand admiral Mezemorta Hüseyin Pa?a (d. 1701). While his biographical information and life experiences must be reconstructed from a variety of sources, ranging from French correspondence to Ottoman bureaucratic records, the course of his career encapsulates the reality of a global Mediterranean even as late as the final decade of the seventeenth century. In a trajectory that took him from becoming a corsair under the North African regencies, to a captive of the Spanish Habsburgs, to the ruling Dey of Algiers, to an Ottoman officer propping up its Black Sea and Danube frontiers, and finally, the grand admiral of the Ottoman navy, Mezemorta stands out as a trans-regional figure who knew not only the Mediterranean, but also the Black Sea, along with the peoples inhabiting all these regions. In the course of outlining Mezemorta’s remarkable life and experiences, the article will also examine historiographical questions about how to interpret the diverse perspectives on Mezemorta, which range across French consuls, captured Hapsburg engravers, and Ottoman chroniclers alike. More importantly, it will demonstrate how Mezemorta’s extensive experience, constructed across a wide space of Mediterranean, Black Sea and North African spaces, was absolutely critical for the temporary revival of Ottoman power in the eighteenth century, temporarily abating the crisis that had afflicted its institutions over the course of the previous one. This made him a harbinger of later developments that would see Ottoman rulers and statesmen take a more global outlook, and a recognition that the empire needed to have a better understanding of a wider world.