In these wooden ships, which often “worked,” and had to go through heavy weather, the merchant would sometimes find his beautiful Oriental silks ruined; so there was a regulation that when the water began to rise in the hold the captain was to let the merchants know at once, so that they could bring their linens and silks up on deck. But apart from these risks there were those caused by bad seamanship, the attacks by pirates at sea or robbers in harbour, the evil men who did not hesitate to cut the cables of the visiting ship or waylay the merchants and crew as soon as they came ashore; and there were the wreckers who deliberately displayed false lights to lure the ship into destruction—surely one of the lowest of all maritime crimes that could be devised by the cunning of man. It was laid down that if a ship “in sail” ran into another ship lying at anchor, or which had “slackened sail,” and it was during daylight, the damage was to be borne by the captain, by those on board and by the cargo. But if the incident occurred at night, the man who “slackened sail” should have lit a fire or have shouted. Be it remembered that these merchant ships, though the most seaworthy of any craft then in existence, were very unhandy and not always under control in narrow channels. It was impossible for any regulation of man to prevent them encountering bad weather and even experiencing shipwreck, but by laying these ships up in November, and not allowing them to sail until the following March, the authorities were following the wise custom which had been handed down since classical times, and embodied this practice in their law. Against the corsair who attacked the ships of his country’s enemies, and against the pirate who attacked every ship that came his way, there could be no absolute guarantee unless the ship was in a convoy escorted by armed galleys. But these corsairs made no false pretence about their work, and when in 1165 the Pisans asked Trepedecinus, a well-known Genoese corsair, where he was going, he merely replied that he was going to capture them, their goods, their persons and cut off their noses. It was therefore not unusual to carry in these trading ships some men-at-arms with swords, shields and helmets. Thus, in a charter-party of 1236 there is laid down that there are to be twenty-five mariners on board, of whom ten are to be in armour. Quite apart from the convoy system, it was customary for two or more ships to voyage in company for mutual protection, the technical term for this being _conservagium_. It was an arrangement that was mutual also in quite another manner, for if one of the ships was sunk, the loss was spread among the others in the consort—a still further instance of the sharing-out principle which was so common at sea in these times.