dly managed; the numerous
colonists, of very diverse origin and worth, were cast without resources
upon a territory as unhealthy as fertile. No preparations had been made
to receive them; the majority died of disease and want; New France
henceforth belonged to the English, and the great hopes which had been
raised of replacing it in Equinoctial France, as Guiana was named, soon
vanished never to return. An attempt made about the same epoch at St.
Lucie was attended with the same result. The great ardor and the rare
aptitude for distant enterprises which had so often manifested themselves
in France from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century seemed to be
henceforth extinguished. Only the colonies of the Antilles, which had
escaped from the misfortunes of war, and were by this time recovered from
their disasters, offered any encouragement to the patriotic efforts of
the Duke of Choiseul. He had been more fortunate in Europe than in the
colonies: henceforth Corsica belonged to France.

In spite of the French occupations, from 1708 to 1756, in spite of the
refusals with which Cardinal Fleury had but lately met their appeals, the
Corsicans, newly risen against the oppression of Genoa, had sent a
deputation to Versailles to demand the recognition of their republic,
offering to pay the tribute but lately paid annually to their tyrannical
protectress.

The hero of Corsican independence, Pascal Paoli, secretly supported by
England, had succeeded for several years past not only in defending his
country's liberty, but also in governing and at the same time civilizing
it. This patriotic soul and powerful mind, who had managed to profit by
the energetic passions of his compatriots whilst momentarily repressing
their intestine quarrels, dreamed of an ideal constitution for his
island; he sent to ask for one of J. J. Rousseau, who was still in
Switzerland, and whom he invited to Corsica. The philosophical chimeras
of Paoli soon vanished before a piece of crushing news. The Genoese,
weary of struggling unsuccessfully against the obstinate determination of
the Corsicans, and unable to clear off the debts which they had but
lately incurred to Louis XV., had proposed to M. de Choiseul to cede to
France their ancient rights over Corsica, as security for their
liabilities. A treaty, signed at Versailles on the 15th of May, 1768,
authorized the king to perform all acts of sovereignty in the places and
forts of Corsica; a separat