During the growth of this Eastern trade, carried on with such indomitable energy, amid difficulties of all kinds, the Florentines were always aiming at the command of the seaboard, and never losing sight of the necessity of having a port of their own. And when, by the capture of Pisa in 1406, that long-desired object was finally attained, a new era began for their commerce. All their business concerns became most rapidly extended, and the first half of the fifteenth century was the time in which their greatest wealth was accumulated. In 1421 they appointed "consuls of the sea," who were ordered to immediately build two wide-beamed merchant galleons (_galee di mercato_) and six narrow galleys, and to continue to launch one of either kind every six months, for the which purpose a monthly sum of one hundred florins was assigned from the revenues of the Pisan university. Accordingly Florence soon possessed a merchant fleet of eleven stout galleons and fifteen narrow galleys continually employed in the Eastern traffic by command of the Republic. All these vessels had strict sailing orders as to the course to be taken, the ports to be touched at, and the freight to be carried. Announcements of their departure and arrival were hung in the arcades of the New Market; and the vessels being chartered by private individuals, the government was enabled to keep the Eastern routes open to all, without any outlay. In 1422, when, as already related, the "galley florin" was coined, the Florentines, at the instance of one Taddeo Cenni, a merchant long established in Venice, despatched two envoys to Egypt to obtain the right of having a church, warehouses, dockmen, and porters of their own at Alexandria. The negotiation proving successful, in 1423 they instructed the "consuls of the sea" to appoint extra consuls at every port where their presence might be useful to Florentine trade. Some had been established for more or less time at Constantinople, Pera (1339), and London (1402); but from this moment we find them at Alexandria, Majorca, Naples, and other ports in all directions. These consuls had offices and clerks of their own, interpreters, men-at-arms, and places of worship; and all their expenses, salary included, were deducted from the freight dues received by them.[362]