text:  In pursuance of their usual system of colonial administration which strangely contrasted with their domestic policy they had introduced into the island a sort of modified feudal system in order to rivet their ascendancy over this remote possession by the interposition of a class of resident proprietors whose interest it would be to maintain the dominion of the parent state: but the _cavaliers_ as the Venetian tenants of Cretan fiefs were termed proved at times even more refractory than the candidates themselves and made the island for many years a source of endless difficulties to the Signory