received sudden and secret orders to repair to Corte, the capital of
Corsica, an island of which I knew nothing beyond what I had learnt
in casual talk from the Count Domenico Rivarola, who then acted as
its plenipotentiary at Florence. He was a man with whom I would
willingly have taken counsel, but my orders from England expressly
forbade it. Rivarola in fact was suspected--and justly as my story
will show--of designs of his own for the future of the island; and
although, as it will also show, we had done better to consult him,
Walpole's injunctions were precise that I should by every means keep
him in the dark.

"The situation--to put it as briefly as I can--was this. For two
hundred years or so the island had been ruled by the Republic of
Genoa; and, by common consent, atrociously. For generations the
islanders had lived in chronic revolt, under chiefs against whom the
Genoese--or, to speak more correctly, the Bank of Genoa--had not
scrupled to apply every device, down to secret assassination.
_Uno avolso non deficit alter_: the Corsicans never lacked a leader
to replace the fallen: and in 1735 the succession was shared by two
noble patriots, Giafferi and Hyacinth Paoli.

"Under their attacks the Genoese were slowly but none the less
certainly losing their hold on the island. Their plight was such
that, although no one knew precisely what they would do, every one
foresaw that, failing some heroic remedy, they must be driven into
the sea, garrison after garrison, and lose Corsica altogether; and of
all speculations the most probable seemed that they would sell the
island, with all its troubles, to France. Now, for France to acquire
so capital a _point d'appui_ in the Mediterranean would obviously be
no small inconvenience to England: and therefore our Ministers--who