For the most part, the European Christian powers were too occupied fighting each other to pay much heed to the rather small-scale predation of the Barbary corsairs. Spain, for instance, notably diminished the resources allocated to the fight against the North African raiders in the 1510s, considering French expansionism as a much greater threat to its security. Corsairs were taken seriously only by lesser coastal powers such as Genoa and the Papal States in particular because they directly menaced important trade routes upon which their economies and grain supplies depended. In early spring 1519, aware of the arrival of Kaid Ali's flotilla in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Genoese Republic entrusted its coastline defense to a local captain, the nobleman Andrea Doria, who had acquired a good reputation fighting in Corsica for the Republic. Mindful of the difficulty of the task at hand, Andrea Doria demanded that the Republic's four galleys be reinforced with another two. The Genoese government granted his request but, because there were too few prisoners and captives to provide the two new boats with sufficient rowers, free oarsmen were recruited (known as "buonavoglia") to complement the rowing crew.