The new men, finding that they could not triumph by weight of numbers in the public councils, resolved to attempt secret ways to their end. They managed so well that in 1545 they secured the election to the Dogate of Giovanni Battista de Fornari.[19] The faction of San Luca raised a great outcry of indignation, but in vain. De Fornari, a new noble, stepped over their heads into the highest office. They remembered the humiliation, and afterwards avenged themselves upon the new Doge. From what we have said it will be seen that the laws of Andrea, far from restoring the Republic, sowed new seeds of discontent between the nobles, so concordant in their discord, and the people over whom they ruled. Doria, Admiral of Cæsar, conqueror by the arms of his lieutenants in so many battles, and owner of more than twenty galleys, concentrated all power in the hands of the old nobility, whom he made blindly devoted to his interests. It is no marvel that he directed at pleasure the ship of the Republic. Without the name, he possessed the supremacy and honours of a prince. Men called him the Father of his country and the Restorer of liberty. What we have said shows the nature of the liberties which he gave the State, and they will be further illustrated in the progress of this history. He loved his country; but he spent all his long life in establishing a stable despotism in the room of tumultuous liberty. He loved his country; but obeying the orders which he received weekly from Cæsar, he enslaved that country to Spain. On the contrary, the Republic had always better consulted her interests by standing in a neutral attitude between contending princes. Ottaviano Sauli gave eminent proof of such political wisdom when the Republic sent him as its envoy to the Duke of Milan, and he brought back and enforced by his advice the counsel of that prince, to keep neutral and resist the influence of Cæsar in Genoa. The government preferred this policy, and in its letters to the English king, to Venice and to Florence, openly avowed that its chief care was to live in freedom; that it knew the advantages of neutrality, and would not bow to the will of others; that its single aim was to strengthen and maintain its integrity and its policy of supporting the independence of the other Italian Republics.[20] These were generous words, and they were supported by deeds. But Doria willed the supremacy of Spain, and he triumphed. Then Genoa, in the siege of Florence, favoured the enemies of Italy; even threw a lance at Siena; extinguished in blood the revolt of Naples, and, with the arm of Doria, strangled everywhere the voice of national liberty. From that moment the robust vigour of the Republic began to decrease, and the shadows of old age fell on her. The lifeless forms of the court of Spain took the place of our civil strifes and our heroic achievements abroad.