is a fact of historical importance. To hold Corsica as the basis of the naval and political operations of Great Britain in the Mediterranean was an essential part of the plan, and it was singularly favoured by circumstances. The loss of Minorca about twelve years before had not been forgotten by the people of England. Malta we did not possess. From Gibraltar eastward we had not a harbour to call our own. Nelson was profoundly convinced of the naval importance of Corsica to Great Britain at this period, and justly reckoned the gallant attack on Bastia as one of the most brilliant of his exploits. To these considerations Sir Gilbert Elliot added a definite political object, to which the internal state of Corsica was not less favourable.

The Corsicans had recently risen against the French, who had held the island since 1763, and succeeded in shutting up the French troops in three fortresses-S. Fiorenzo, Bastia, and Calvi. Unable to reduce these strong places without assistance, they addressed themselves to Lord Hood, then commanding the fleet off Toulon. In return for British aid and protection General Paoli was authorised by his countrymen to propose the annexation of Corsica to the British Crown in any form and under any conditions his Majesty might think proper to dictate, due regard being paid to the laws and liberties of the Corsicans. Such was the state of affairs when the failure of the Toulon expedition left Sir Gilbert free to act elsewhere, and he immediately availed himself of the opportunity. He was received with enthusiasm in the island. The cry of Viva 'Paoli e la natione Inglese' resounded from every hamlet and every hill. The letters in which Sir Gilbert describes these scenes to his wife are charming. We regret that we cannot quote them all. After some little interval, Lady Elliot with her six children joined him there; and thus it fell out that Sir Gilbert's son and successor, the second Earl of Minto, who lived to take an active part in encouraging and aiding the Italian popular and national cause in 1847 and 1849, and even to witness the final triumph of that cause in the campaign of 1859, received the first impressions which bound him for life to the cause of Italy, in the chestnut groves and glens of Corsica in 1794, when he was just twelve years old.

Lady Minto thus describes the island:

'The state of Corsica in 1794 was thus, in some respects, very similar to that of the Scotch Borders in the sixteenth century. Like the Borderers, the Corsicans, while making common cause against a foreign rule, were among themselves divided into a number of clans at war with each other, whose hereditary feuds lasted from generation to

generation. Each clan was composed of small landholders and their dependents, to whom it was as inconvenient in harvest time to attend the National Assembly as it had been to Scotts, Kerrs, and Elliots to set forth at a similar season on a foray into England. Among the gentry there were individuals possessed of a relatively high degree of education and of accomplishments, but the people generally were untrained in habits of order and industry.

'Like the Borderer the Corsican peasant was content to live on ewemilk cheese and on a cake, which the Italian made of chestnuts and the Scotchman of oatmeal. Both felt themselves despised unless possessed of a gun and a horse. Both preferred a herdsman's to a labourer's life, partly from a sense of personal dignity, and partly because men care not to sow where they know not who will reap; and both infinitely preferred to all manner of work the excitement of the fray, with the craigs for their strongholds and the desolate places for a safe retreat.'

Here in a delightful climate and amongst a primitive people the Elliots remained for nearly three years, not without hopes of materially improving the social condition of the island.

'I am very fond,' Sir Gilbert writes, 'of Corsica; I mean of its cause and interests; and I have real ambition to be the founder of what I consider as likely to prove its future happiness. My wish, therefore, would be to settle, as representing Great Britain, our connexion with Corsica; to be the first representative of British Government there; to prepare its new Constitution; to see the machine fairly launched and floating with a favourable breeze, and then to resign the helm.' *

In this spirit he began what may be called his reign. In conjunction with Dundas and Moore, Hood and Nelson, S. Fiorenzo and Bastia were taken. The crown of Corsica was

We may refer our readers to our own pages (Ed. Rev., vol. ci. p. 442) for an interesting account of Corsica and Pascal Paoli during the war of independence. But the writer of that article stated too broadly that in 1794 Corsica was thought a valuable acquisition by the English and obtained a highly democratic constitution from Mr. Pitt. The fact is that England knew nothing of Corsica, and Mr. Pitt never paid the least attention to the island or its constitution. The whole affair was conducted by Elliot and the officers of the Mediterranean fleet, for from the army he got as little support as he did from Ministers at home. The constitution was adapted to the manners and opinions of the people -a people accustomed from time immemorial to the utmost municipal freedom. Free as it was, it was not free enough for the Corsican Republicans. Nor is the account of Pozzo di Borgo in the abovementioned article quite correct. Paoli was hostile to the Pozzos, and jealous of this particular member of the family. Sir Gilbert Elliot seems intuitively to have discovered his talents, which were of the highest order.

solemnly tendered to George III., as represented by his Majesty's Plenipotentiary; and action, moreover, was taken to introduce a regular government in the island. Amongst those Corsicans who turned their allegiance to England for the purpose of resisting that revolutionary despotism of which another Corsican was to be the chief, was one man (besides Paoli) of no common stamp.

It is a current anecdote, and I think honourable to the sagacity and long views as well as to the spirit and courage of the man, that on June 20, 1792, Pozzo di Borgo, one of the Corsican Deputies to the Legislative Assembly, said to Pietri, one of his colleagues, that it was now become impossible to continue any further connexion with France, and that he was sure it must end in the union of Corsica with England. That very day he bought at Paris an English grammar and dictionary, and Pietri, who had been in England and speaks the language, began to give him lessons. On that day two years precisely he was subject of his Majesty, and has found occasion for his English. They all quitted Paris a few days after the 10th of August, contriving with difficulty to bring their heads safe to Corsica.'

Pozzo became, and remained for life, one of the warmest friends of the Minto family, and subsequently began his diplomatic career as an attaché to Lord Minto's embassy to Vienna.

But Sir Gilbert's position in Corsica was not a bed of roses. From England he received in October 1794 a bare approval, but months elapsed before the commission arrived which really enabled him to assume the viceregal authority. Unluckily the Duke of Portland, whose weakness had proved so fatal to the party two years before, was now the Minister to whom Elliot had to address his official communications. He got no answers. Pitt told him after his return, that he had heard nothing on the subject, and Elliot saw some of his own despatches unopened on the Duke's table. It may be presumed that the question of Corsica and Elliot's Italian policy were never fairly brought before the Cabinet. Paoli and the Corsican liberals conceived themselves to be slighted, and their suspicious nature was inflamed by the influence Pozzo di Borgo was supposed to have acquired with the Viceroy. At length Paoli was induced by a pension of 2,000l. a year to leave the island. It must be remembered, that in establishing British authority in Corsica, Sir Gilbert Elliot had anticipated the course of events by two whole years, for it was not till 1796 that the victorious armies of France overran the whole of Italy. The British Ministers were totally unable to see so far before them; they neglected his advice; they starved the Mediterranean fleet; and at length they abandoned the position

which had been won for them by Elliot's judgment and by the gallantry of Hood and Nelson. In December 1794 he wrote to the Duke of Portland, that unless Great Britain were pre'pared to make a great and vigorous exertion in the war, Corsica, as well as Italy, must inevitably succumb to the arms ' of France.' Two months later he added to Dundas words which might well seem prophetic :

'War seems more necessary than ever, since to the former danger of French anarchy is now added that of her ambition. The liberty of Europe was never before in such danger; nor has there been, since the Roman age, so great a prospect of universal empire. . . . In the South, everything depends on our maintaining our maritime superiority, and on the Emperor sending a great and real force to Italy. With regard to the first, I still hope to see it effected; at the same time the thing hangs by a thread. If another ship should be disabled-and nothing is so possible-I think Admiral Hotham would quit the Mediterranean. With regard to the Emperor I have little faith. . . . The opinion of our power is getting low, while that of the enemy is becoming every week more formidable; and while this state of things lasts we must expect our friends to fall off and all our affairs to decline. I own I could wish that it were possible for Great Britain once more to assert herself; the want of that reputation which ought to belong to us has, in fact, lost us the co-operation of Genoa and Tuscany and neutralised all Italy. This circumstance has very probably decided the fate of the war; for if we had been able to direct all these Italian States, the South of France would have been famished long ago. If you continue the war, I take it for granted that you expect by exertion to obtain resources equal to the occasion, for however disastrous peace may be now, it will be more and more so after another unsuccessful campaign. I should therefore hope that you may have formed a plan, and taken measures for a great effort in the Mediterranean, for that is now a main branch of the

war.

'In the event of the Government deciding on a vigorous campaign in the South, Sir Gilbert "was assured that with a strong fleet in the "Mediterranean, a force of 4,000 or 5,000 British troops to hold the for"tresses of Corsica, would suffice to insure the safety of the island, and "with it, harbours for our ships, and protection for our trade with the "Mediterranean and Levant." He added: "If some such measures are "not taken, I cannot help apprehending that we shall soon see a great "part of the Roman empire revived, with the difference only of having "the metropolis on the Seine instead of the Tiber."'

This remarkable language was used more than six months before the appointment of Bonaparte to the command of the army of Italy, and eighteen months before the prodigious achievements of the future Emperor of France. But it became impossible to hold Corsica with a paltry force, whilst France threatened Sardinia and Leghorn, and the population of the

island were excited by the triumphs of French arms under a Corsican leader.

"To be weak is miserable-doing or suffering," was the key-note of the Viceroy's correspondence, public or private, at this time.

'You cannot keep Corsica,' he wrote to one of the Ministers, against the will of the whole people. You ought not, if you could; but if you can spare a sufficient number of British troops to hold the strong places of the island, with the aid of the fleet, against all external attacks, the knowledge that you can do so will keep this people steady to your cause. If we are weak we shall be set at naught. If we are strong weak Powers will cling to us.'

"The opinions of Sir John Jervis and of Commodore Nelson coincided with those of Sir Gilbert. "With harbours of refuge for our fleets and "a position for our troops and stores such as Corsica afforded, they had "no doubt of being able to command the Mediterranean, and to protect "or threaten the coasts of Italy, according as they should be held by "friend or foe, without the dismal necessity of bolstering up our incompetent allies."

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Yet at this crisis-for eight whole months-there came no official instructions from England; when at length they did arrive (September 29, 1796), they announced the intention of the Government to abandon Corsica and to withdraw altogether from the Mediterranean policy Elliot had sought to inaugurate. Meanwhile, upon the arrival of the French at Leghorn, Nelson, acting under the orders of Sir Gilbert, had seized the forts and tower of Porto Ferrajo, in the island of Elba, to secure a receptacle for the troops, stores, and loyal subjects of King George an invaluable port and harbour,' said Nelson, which 'I have now taken in execution of your plan.' But this position was likewise soon afterwards abandoned.

'We are all,' wrote Nelson, 'preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what this fleet is capable of performing: anything and everything. Much as I shall rejoice to see England, I lament our present orders in sackcloth and ashes, as dishonourable to the dignity of England, whose fleets are equal to meet the world in arms; and of all the fleets I ever saw I never beheld one in point of officers and men equal to Sir John Jervis's, who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory.'

A great point was gained,' wrote Sir W. Hamilton to Lord Nelson, October 31, 1796, 'By your (his, Nelson's, and Sir Gilbert's) joint endeavours to prevent the king's fleet from abandoning the Mediterranean, and by which I verily believe these kingdoms and all Italy are saved from the absolute ruin with which they were immediately threatened.' (Nelson's Despatches, vol. ii. p. 289.)

To the Duke of Portland Sir Gilbert wrote officially :'Your Grace has, I believe, already had occasion to know by the

VOL. CXXXIX. NO. CCLXXXIII.

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