heir conduct. The foreign trade of the
islanders was almost ruined by a law which appointed Genoa as the sole
port to which their products could be exported. The Corsicans, like many
other mountaineers, had always been too much given up to private feuds.
But it was charged against their Genoese masters, that, in their dread
of union among their subjects, they themselves fomented dissentions. It
was asserted in a petition presented to the King of France in 1738,
that, under the last sixteen Governors, no less than 26,000 Corsicans
had died by the hands of the assassin.

In the legal proceedings that followed on these deeds of bloodshed, the
Genoese judges found their profit. Condemnation was often followed by
confiscation of the criminal's estates; acquittal had often been
preceded by a heavy bribe to the judge. Multitudes were condemned to the
galleys on frivolous charges in the hope that they would purchase their
freedom at a high price. The law was even worse than the judges. A man
could be condemned to the galleys or to death on secret information,
without being once confronted with his accusers, without undergoing any
examination, without the observance of any formality of any kind in the
sentence that was passed on him. The judge could either acquit the
greatest criminal, or condemn a man of stainless character "_ex
informata conscientia_, on the information of his own conscience, of
which he was not obliged to give any account." He could at any time stop
the course of justice, "by saying '_Non procedatur_, let there be no
process;' which could easily be cloaked under the pretence of some
defect in point of form." When this atrocious law was at last abolished,
Montesquieu wrote, "On a vu souvent des peuples demander des privileges;
ici le souverain accorde le droit de toutes les nations." No wonder that
Horace Walpole exclaimed more than twenty years before Boswell's book
was published, "I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most
devilish of all tyrannies!"

In 1729 the people rose once more against their rulers. It was the case
of Wat Tyler over again. A tax-gatherer demanded a small sum--it was but
about fivepence--of a poor old woman. Small as it was, she had not
wherewithal to pay. He abused her, and seized some of her furniture. She
raised an outcry. Her neighbours came flocking in and took her part. The
tax-gatherer used threats, and was answered with a volley of stones.
Troops were sent to suppor