After this pillage, prisoners of war and other slaves were treated with greater severity. For, though up to this period the young men served at the oar, yet many of the Mamalukes, as the Barbary prisoners were called in Genoa, had some privileges from the government and their servitude was not of a strict and painful character. Some of them had the permission to engage in minute traffic within the city and had their markets in the piazza of the arsenal and the Piano of St. Andrea. There they shaved and trimmed the beards of the citizens, and none could equal them in this art. They traded in coffee, sugar, brandy, pipes, tobacco and game. They practised small frauds in their trade and some of them grew rich, while many were able to buy themselves out of bondage. These privileges were now taken away from them, and were not restored until many years after. In this way the rigours of slavery were increased among us, though the system was restricted to the “infidels” who were either bought in Egypt or captured in war. It is true that a law of the Republic forbade the buying and selling of slaves in the land of the Sultan; but this provision was evaded by shipping the captives to Caffa where the Grand Turk sent agents for the traffic. Our statutes by enacting grave penalties against slave-stealers, held slaves to be the absolute property of their masters; and in 1588 it was ruled that in a case of shipwreck the loss should be distributed _pro rata_ counting all sorts of merchandise “including male and female slaves, horses and other animals.”
The government hastened to inform the emperor and Ferrante Gonzaga of the insurrection. The latter sent Cavalier Cicogna on a mission to the senate and he himself at the head of a strong force advanced to Voghera to watch the movements of the Fieschi at Montobbio. All the Italian princes friendly to the empire congratulated the Republic on its escape from the conspiracy. Cardinal Cibo, who sent as his messenger Ercole de Bucchi, the Duke of Florence, by his legate Jacopo de’ Medici, and the ten conservators of liberty of Siena, by M. Nicodemo, offered their services and assistance to the government in case of need.
We find also a letter of Giulio Cybo, Marquis of Massa, in which he declares that he has collected troops at Borghetto to march to the assistance of the Republic; but it became known afterwards that these troops had been massed to aid the Fieschi insurrection. They did not pertain alone to the Marquis of Massa, but also to Gasparo di Fosnuovo and other feudatories. We shall presently speak of the congratulations sent by the Pope and Pierluigi Farnese.