Joined in their appeal by the son[366] of the dethroned monarch, Alexius Angelus, who had escaped in the disguise of a common sailor on board an Italian vessel, their case was at once promised consideration, and was soon after brought under the notice of the leading pilgrims of the West, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the Marquis of Montferrat, then assembled at Venice, to negotiate with that republic for shipping to convey them on the Fourth Crusade.[367] For many centuries the inhabitants of Venice had been considered as a portion of the subjects of the Greek empire; but when their power and influence had greatly increased, notably by the acquisition of the cities on the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia, the extent of their maritime commerce entitled them to assume an independent position. “The sea was their patrimony;” and with the chief command of the western shores of the Mediterranean, the Venetian galleys had now secured the still more lucrative commerce of Greece and Egypt. Nor were they simply traders: Venetian glass and silk manufactures had an early reputation; while their system of banking and of foreign exchange, which they worked on a much more extensive scale than any other nation, gave them a great commercial preponderance in the south of Europe. To assert these rights and to protect the freedom of their subjects, they are said to have been able to equip at very short notice one hundred galleys; but their usual policy was essentially that of merchants, and was almost wholly regulated by their trading interests. In their religious dogmas the Venetians avoided the schism of the Greeks without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; while an unrestrained intercourse with the Muhammedans, as well as with other nations, encouraged in her people a spirit of toleration unknown to the Crusaders. [Sidenote: Her ships join in the Crusade, which was afterwards altered from its original design.]