of an oration pronounced
this year at the opening of the University, in which oration I am
celebrated in a manner which does me the greatest honour."

But the jealousy of France was again excited, and again she sent troops
to the island. This was in 1764, nine years after Paoli had received the
supreme command. Rousseau, full of indignation at this monstrous
proceeding, thus expressed himself in a letter to a friend, "Il faut
avouer que vos Francois, sont un peuple bien servile, bien vendu a la
tyrannie, bien cruel, et bien acharne sur les malheureux. S'ils savoient
un homme libre a l'autre bout du monde, je crois qu'ils iroient pour le
seul plaisir de l'exterminer. It must be owned that your countrymen, the
French, are a very servile nation, wholly sold to tyranny, exceedingly
cruel and relentless in persecuting the unhappy. If they knew of a free
man at the other end of the world I believe they would go thither for
the mere pleasure of extirpating him." The French did not act on the
offensive. They merely garrisoned certain towns, and professed to limit
their occupation to the space of four years. It was in the second year
of their occupation (1765) that Boswell visited the island.

At the end of the four years the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to the
crown of France. In the cession there was a pretence of a reservation
with which it is needless to trouble the reader. "Genoa," writes
Voltaire, "made a good bargain, and France made a better." "Il restait a
savoir," he added, "si les hommes ont le droit de vendre d'autres
hommes, mais c'est une question qu'on n'examina jamais dans aucun
traite." Negociations were opened with Paoli, but there was no common
ground between the free chief of a free people and the despot who wished
to enslave them. Paoli might have looked for high honours and rewards
had he consented to enter the French service. He had the far greater and
purer glory of resisting a King of France for nearly a whole year. No
foreign power came to his aid. "A few Englishmen alone," wrote Voltaire,
"full of love for that liberty which he upheld, sent him some money and
arms." His troops were badly armed. Their muskets were not even
furnished with bayonets. Their courage went some way to make up for
their want of proper weapons. In one battle they piled up in front of
them a rampart of their dead, and behind this bloody pile they loaded
their pieces before they began their retreat.

But against the disciplin