In addition to this virtual confiscation of property for no valid cause and without indemnity, the Moors were compelled to produce the arms whose possession had already been licensed, in order to have them stamped by the government, and thus contribute still further to the gratification of official greed. The penalty incurred for the possession of a weapon without permission was six years in the galleys; that for counterfeiting the royal stamp was death. The enforcement of these regulations, the first of which threatened to paralyze agricultural labor, the principal occupation of the Moriscoes and the main dependence of the revenues of the crown, exasperated beyond endurance those affected by their enactment. The loss of their slaves impoverished many. Some surrendered their arms and procured others clandestinely. Others enlisted in the organized bands of outlaws who, under the name of monfis, roamed through the sierras and levied at will contributions upon the wealthy Spaniards of the Vega. Many of these brigands, through the connivance of their sympathizers, entered the capital by night in force, bore away the wives and children of their enemies, and left in the squares and highways the mutilated corpse of every Christian they encountered. The numbers of the monfis increased with alarming rapidity. Their incursions began to resemble the operations of an organized army; preparations for an insurrection were secretly instituted, and the assistance of the rulers of Fez, Algiers, and Constantinople was earnestly solicited in behalf of those who represented themselves as persecuted Mohammedans, abandoned without any other resource to the tyranny of Christian avarice and power.