This shrewd advice was followed; every inducement was held out to the wealthy nobles to place their money in the hands of the emperor, with such securities and guarantees as would infallibly induce other citizens to follow the example and bind themselves with their fortunes to Spain. By this expedient Charles seemed to leave the Genoese their independence, but he really made them tributary to his crown, Phillip II. pursued this policy with even greater assiduity and it became hereditary in the Spanish princes. It was in fact for two centuries the political science by which the court of Spain regulated the affairs of Italy; and the people found themselves insensibly bound, without their own action, to the interests and policy of that crown. It must be said that some give a different version of the affair of the citadel. Writers of weight tell us that, even in this, Doria was subservient to Charles; but we cannot believe it possible. His steadfast resistance to that scheme is more consistent with the greatness and fame of the illustrious admiral; and, though he was a vehement partisan of the imperial cause, he could not have wished to become, like Cosimo, its slave. When the Medici gave up to imperial troops the fortresses of Florence and Leghorn, he found himself in the hands of a master, and never digested the retort of Venice, who refused to treat with him “because he was, in his own house, the servant of another man.” We think the truth to be that when Doria saw the unanimity of the people in opposing the erection of a citadel, he wisely resolved to support his fellow-citizens, and the people are entitled to the chief praise for the failure of that scheme. They were not yet corrupted by the servility of the nobility, and might have renewed the examples of their ancient valour and prevented the foreign power from striking root in the Republic. They lost no opportunity of manifesting their profound dislike of Spain, as Doge Lercaro himself testifies. When Charles gave to Cosimo the government of Piombino, then in the hands of the Appiani, the Genoese rose up in arms and demanded of the senate that galleys be despatched to Elba to expel the Florentines and Spaniards. This time, too, it was Doria who held back the arms of the people. It is easy to see that the new ties between Genoa and Spain were the principal occasion of our decline. Doria, by breaking the French alliance and persecuting the men of Barbary (instead of courting their alliance after the example of Venice) hastened our fall. Our commerce gradually declined. French and Barbary fleets roved over our seas and destroyed our marine. The city was put to great straits, and longed in vain for the only remedy for its maladies, the alliance of France to open up the commerce of the East. Fieschi, who had courted these benefits, was remembered the more sadly as disasters multiplied upon the Republic.