ty of yielding to the desires of the people, and of
frequently conferring with the chiefs. The object even of the voyage
required that, instead of seeking retirement, I should in the heart of
the country endeavor to gain the information of which I stood in need.
It was certain that I should no longer be master of my own time, and
that, in spite of myself, precipitated into the vortex in which I was not
born to move, I should there lead a life contrary to my inclination,
and never appear but to disadvantage. I foresaw that ill-supporting by
my presence the opinion my books might have given the Corsicans of my
capacity, I should lose my reputation amongst them, and, as much to their
prejudice as my own, be deprived of the confidence they had in me,
without which, however, I could not successfully produce the work they
expected from my pen. I am certain that, by thus going out of my sphere,
I should become useless to the inhabitants, and render myself unhappy.

Tormented, beaten by storms from every quarter, and, for several years
past, fatigued by journeys and persecution, I strongly felt a want of the
repose of which my barbarous enemies wantonly deprived me: I sighed more
than ever after that delicious indolence, that soft tranquillity of body
and mind, which I had so much desired, and to which, now that I had
recovered from the chimeras of love and friendship, my heart limited its
supreme felicity. I viewed with terror the work I was about to
undertake; the tumultuous life into which I was to enter made me tremble,
and if the grandeur, beauty, and utility of the object animated my
courage, the impossibility of conquering so many difficulties entirely
deprived me of it.

Twenty years of profound meditation in solitude would have been less
painful to me than an active life of six months in the midst of men and
public affairs, with a certainty of not succeeding in my undertaking.

I thought of an expedient which seemed proper to obviate every
difficulty. Pursued by the underhand dealings of my secret persecutors
to every place in which I took refuge, and seeing no other except Corsica
where I could in my old days hope for the repose I had until then been
everywhere deprived of, I resolved to go there with the directions of M.
Buttafuoco as soon as this was possible, but to live there in
tranquillity; renouncing, in appearance, everything relative to
legislation, and, in some measure, to make my hosts a return for th