sufficiently appear. Before he left Leghorn,
his proposed visit had come to be regarded in a very serious light by
Italian politicians. They saw in him an envoy from the British intrusted
with powers to negotiate a treaty with Corsica, and all disclaimers of
any such intention were politely treated as an evasion. Bozzy was in
consequence viewed as 'a very close young man,' a trait that at no time
of his life was ever applicable to James Boswell, on whom, indeed, the
advice given by Sir Henry Wotton to Milton would have been thrown away.
Putting out to sea in a Tuscan vessel bound for Capo Corso for wine, he
had two days to spend on board in consequence of a dead calm. 'At
sunset,' he says, 'all the people in the ship sang _Ave Maria_ with
great devotion and some melody.' One recalls the similar circumstances
under which Cardinal Newman found himself becalmed on the orange-boat in
the Straits of Bonifacio. For some hours he had put himself in spirits
by taking a hand at the oar, and at seven in the evening of the second
day they landed in the harbour of Centuri. He delivered his credentials,
and on Sunday heard a Corsican sermon, where the preacher told of
Catharine of Siena who wished to be laid in the mouth of the awful pit,
that she might stop it up, and so prevent the falling in of more souls.
'I confess, my brethren,' cried the friar, 'I have not such zeal, but I
do what I can, I warn you how to avoid it.'

At Corte, the capital of the island, he waited boldly upon the Supreme
Council. He was gravely received, as befitted a supposed British envoy,
and lodged in the apartment of Paoli in a Franciscan convent. Next day,
the old petitioner for a commission in the Guards found the first and
last military experience of his life. Three French deserters waited on
him in the belief that he came to recruit soldiers for Scotland, and
'begged to have the honour of going along with me.' Nor was the idea so
absurd as he seems to have viewed it, for from the _Scots Magazine_ of a
somewhat later date we learn that British Volunteers and Highlanders
disbanded after the wars had been enlisted in the service of Paoli. But
it is not improbable that the deserters had heard of Boswell's
nationality from the woman of Penrith whom he found in the island,
married to a French soldier in the army of the Pretender, whose fortunes
she had followed when they had passed through Carlisle on the retreat
from Derby. Another feature of Boswell, one