ose suits were determined by the
syndicato were not pleased with the sentence, they had an audience of
Paoli, who never failed to convince them that justice had been done
them. This appeared to me a necessary indulgence in the infancy of
government. The Corsicans having been so long in a state of anarchy,
could not all at once submit their minds to the regular authority of
justice. They would submit implicitly to Paoli, because they love and
venerate him. But such a submission is in reality being governed by
their passions. They submit to one for whom they have a personal regard.
They cannot be said to be perfectly civilized till they submit to the
determinations of their magistrates as officers of the state, entrusted
with the administration of justice. By convincing them that the
magistrates judge with abilities and uprightness, Paoli accustoms the
Corsicans to have that salutary confidence in their rulers, which is
necessary for securing respect and stability to the government.

[Footnote 111: See page 154.--ED.]

After having said much in praise of the Corsicans, "Come," said he, "you
shall have a proof of what I tell you. There is a crowd in the next
room, waiting for admittance to me. I will call in the first I see, and
you shall hear him." He who chanced to present himself, was a venerable
old man. The General shook him by the hand, and bid him good day, with
an easy kindness that gave the aged peasant full encouragement to talk
to his Excellency with freedom. Paoli bid him not mind me, but say on.
The old man then told him that there had been an unlucky tumult in the
village where he lived, and that two of his sons were killed. That
looking upon this as a heavy misfortune, but without malice on the part
of those who deprived him of his sons, he was willing to have allowed it
to pass without enquiry. But his wife anxious for revenge, had made an
application to have them apprehended and punished. That he gave his
Excellency this trouble to intreat that the greatest care might be
taken, lest in the heat of enmity among his neighbours, any body should
be punished as guilty of the blood of his sons, who was really innocent
of it. There was something so generous in this sentiment, while at the
same time the old man seemed full of grief for the loss of his children,
that it touched my heart in the most sensible manner. Paoli looked at me
with complacency and a kind of amiable triumph on the behaviour of the
old man, w