questions of internal policy or
unimportant party arrangement, caused her foreign policy to present a
marked contrast to the vigorous, overbearing, but straightforward path
followed by Pitt. Internal commotions, such as are apt to follow great
wars, and above all the controversy with the North American colonies,
which began as early as 1765 with the well-known Stamp Act, conspired
with other causes to stay the hand of England. Twice at least during
the years of Choiseul's ministry there occurred opportunities which a
resolute, ready, and not too scrupulous government might easily have
converted into a cause of war; the more so as they involved that sea
power which is to England above all other nations the object of just
and jealous concern. In 1764 the Genoese, weary of their unsuccessful
attempts to control Corsica, again asked France to renew the
occupation of the ports which had been garrisoned by her in 1756. The
Corsicans also sent an ambassador to France in order to solicit
recognition of the independence of the island, in consideration of a
tribute equivalent to that which they had formerly paid to Genoa. The
latter, feeling its inability to reconquer the island, at length
decided practically to cede it. The transaction took the shape of a
formal permission for the King of France to exercise all the rights of
sovereignty over all the places and harbors of Corsica, as security
for debts owing to him by the republic. This cession, disguised under
the form of a security in order to palliate the aggrandizement of
France in the eyes of Austria and England, recalls the conditional and
thinly veiled surrender of Cyprus to England nine years ago,--a
transfer likely to be as final and far-reaching as that of Corsica.
England then remonstrated and talked angrily; but though Burke said,
"Corsica as a province of France is terrible to me," only one member
of the House of Commons, the veteran admiral Sir Charles Saunders, was
found to say "that it would be better to go to war with France than
consent to her taking possession of Corsica."[114] Having in view the
then well-recognized interests of England in the Mediterranean, it is
evident that an island so well situated as Corsica for influencing the
shores of Italy and checking the naval station at Minorca, would not
have been allowed to go into the hands of a strong master, if the
nation had felt ready and willing for war.

Again, in 1770, a dispute arose between England and