Exodus 1:10

Come on, let us deal wisely with them, make use of political sagacity combined with despotic craftiness and malice, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. The children of Israel were no citizens of Egypt, they had never become Egyptianized, neither in language nor in religion nor in customs, and so the new despot scented a danger which his policy bade him remove in time. He did not fear the conquest of his own country, but merely the departure of the Jews in case of a war. He considered the Israelites subject to his jurisdiction to the extent of treating them as serfs and bondmen.