For the next two or three days negotiations went on between the primates and the people, and often Tombazes had occasion to wear a mighty grave face, whereby he should cloak the merriness of his heart. The part he was playing, as he assured himself, was the only way of fighting for the good cause, for had he openly joined the revolutionist party, the confidence which the other primates felt in him would be gone, and they would be the more eager to oppose tooth and nail to any proposals. But what they regarded as his diplomatic victory with regard to the national treasure, gave him a position of extraordinary security among them, and Economos, perhaps partly for his own ends, and the spurious credit which the people would give him of having successfully fought down the opposition of the primates, was equally anxious to conceal Tombazes' part in the affair. At length a sum adequate to meet all immediate expenses was raised; the crews were all paid one month's wages in advance, with the prospect of prize-money won from the Turks, and the people seized on the national treasury. Tombazes' ill-suppressed delight at this step, which was conveyed to the primates in conclave, put him for the moment within an ace of exposure. Fresh intrigues began; the primates, to make the best of a bad job, appealed to those sailors and captains who had formerly been in their employment, offering fresh berths in their own service; for many of them owned ships, and as the island was now pledged to the national cause, they, too, proposed to have a finger in the prize-money. Economos, on the other hand, failing to see how it was just that those who had opposed the scheme should take a share in it now, organized a revolutionary committee in whose hands should be the sole conduct of the war, and naturally enough did not appoint any primate on it. Eventually--for both sides were somewhat afraid of each other, and wished to avoid open collision--a compromise was arrived at. Those captains and men who had already definitely engaged themselves in the service of the revolutionists during the opposition of the primates, were forbidden to serve on the primates' ships. On the other hand, the ships of the primates were to be admitted to the fleet, and should be treated in the matter of prize-money with the others. Finally--and had the primates known the cause of this, there would have been angry men in Hydra--the command of the entire fleet was given to Tombazes. On the morning of the 29th of April a solemn service was held in the church, and Tombazes read out the declaration of the independence of Hydra as part of the free state of Greece.