I extract from the opinion of Fra Paolo Sarpi (1615), a more Jesuitical, and, it would seem, more palatable advice to the Senate, since it was, in the end, and to the end followed: "For your Greek subjects of the island of Candia, and the other islands of the Levant, ... the surest way is to keep good garrisons to awe them, and not use them to arms or musters, in hope of being assisted by them in extremity; for they will always show ill inclination proportionably to the strength they shall be musters of.... Wine and bastinadoes ought to be their share, and keep good nature for a better occasion.... If the gentlemen of these colonies do tyrannize over the villages of their dominion, the best way is not to seem so see it, that there may be no kindness between them and their subjects; but, if they offend in anything else, it will be well to chastise them severely, etc.... And in a word, remember that all the good that can come from them is already obtained, which was to fix the Venetian dominion, and for the future there is nothing but mischief to be expected from them." What a pity that Sarpi had not lived before Dante, that he might have been niched in the "Inferno": "Questo é de' rei del fuoco furo." I have only space to epitomize a passage of the history of Crete, under the Venetians, to show how utterly infamous, unjust, and _devilish_ was their _régime_. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the provinces of Selino, Sfakia, and Rhizo seceded, and established an independent government, which was for some time unmolested by the Venetian authorities. The governor of the seceded republic finally presuming to ask in marriage for his son the daughter of a Venetian noble, the latter, to revenge the insult, plotted with the governor of Canéa, and, pretending to consent, lured the family of the soi-disant Greek governor, with a company of nearly 500 of his compatriots, to the marriage feast. The guests having been intoxicated and gone to sleep, and the signal given to the authorities at Canéa, the governor came with 1,700 foot and 150 horse, took the whole prisoners, and in various ways and different places massacred them, except a few who were sent to the galleys.