The position of the Republic was a difficult one. Prudence required the strictest neutrality as to the affairs of other nations; but the mere fact that every one recognised this as Venice’s only possible position exposed her to perfidious and secret attacks of all sorts. France maintained a vast number of secret agents to propagate revolutionary doctrines in the Venetian territory, and at the same time lost no opportunity of trying to pick a quarrel with the Republic, by insulting her flag. On the twenty-ninth of November 1792, the captain of a French man-of-war, bearing a Spanish name, the _Buenos Ayres_, asked permission to land with eight men on the Venetian shore, but refused to submit to the regulations of the Health Office. His request was refused. Thereupon he proceeded to abuse the Venetian government from the deck of his ship. He wound up by declaring that there was no such thing existing as a Sovereign Government, that all men were equal, and that he was a magistrate, as good as any senator. He chose to land, and he would land if he chose. A Venetian galley hindered him [Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 219._] from doing so, but as he made off he cried out: ‘You will change your minds in a year!’ Poor France! She herself was to learn a century later that all men are equal--in the eyes of German Jews. At that time Austria allied herself with Piedmont to oppose the French invasion which was imminent, and the Venetian Envoy at the court of Turin continually advised his government to join this league, which alone could save the Republic and the other Italian powers. The Committee of the Savi who had absorbed the government of Venice simply by saving trouble to all the other officials, allowed the Senate to [Sidenote: _Rom. ix. 195._] discuss this proposition, probably because they understood its vast importance. But the Senate declared for strict neutrality, and the Savi felt that after this they were free to do as they pleased, and from that time they decided according to their own judgment as to the question of showing any despatch to the Councils or of suppressing it in order to avoid public discussions.