For the next few years the Republic was undisturbed by wars and rumours of wars, but its general conditions showed little improvement. The tribute to the Sultan was 12,500 ducats a year, and with gifts and bribes amounted to 16,000; but since the earthquake it had been paid every three years instead of annually. The Ragusans also paid blackmail to the Barbary States, and a tribute at irregular intervals to Austria. Every year a present was sent to the Pope, and twelve _astori_ (falcons) to the King of Naples.[493] The population was now no more than 20,000, and the value of property had so decreased that the incomes of the archbishops and clergy were utterly inadequate. Education was in the hands of the Jesuits, who had established a college. But in the rest of the territory there were no means of instruction or religion. Archbishop Galliani, in a report to the _Propaganda Fide_,[494] complains that the upper classes were beginning to read French books and talk mockingly about fasting, flagellation, and other practices of the Church. When he remonstrated with them he was told that the Index had not been proclaimed at Ragusa, and had therefore no authority. He afterwards had it proclaimed from the pulpits, but the only effect was that the Senate in a fit of zeal ordered the burning of the Jewish Thalmud, a work which can hardly have had many readers, nor shaken the piety of the people. But in spite of their scepticism the Ragusans were as intolerant as ever towards the members of the Orthodox Church. In 1724 a rich Servian, named Sava Vladislavić, who had a house and garden at Ragusa and many friends among the aristocracy, asked permission to build a Greek chapel in his own grounds. But even this modest request, although backed by a letter from the Tsar Peter the Great, was refused.[495] The incident is not without significance; the Catholic Slaves have always been particularly bitter against the Orthodox Christians, while the letter from the Tsar is an early symptom of the interest taken by Russia in the welfare of Orthodox communities outside her own territory, an interest, then as now, essentially political rather than religious. In 1743 Pope Benedict XIV. wrote to the Senate encouraging them in their religious refusal to permit the building of Greek churches and to admit Greek priests into the town. But another revival in the city’s prosperity seemed to be at hand. Trade, which had been apparently in a hopeless condition, began to show signs of improving. In 1727 Ragusan ships once more extended their voyages beyond the limits of the Adriatic; in that year a vessel went to Smyrna for the first time for many years. The wars between England, France, and Spain in 1739-1750, and in 1755-1763, proved advantageous to Ragusan shipping, and much of the commerce of the Mediterranean passed into their hands as neutrals.