has many excellent harbours; and though the MALARIA, or pestilential
atmosphere, which is so deadly in many parts of Italy and of the Italian
islands, prevails on the eastern coast, the greater part of the country
is mountainous and healthy. It is about 150 miles long, and from 40
to 50 broad; in circumference, some 320; a country large enough, and
sufficiently distant from the nearest shores, to have subsisted as an
independent state, if the welfare and happiness of the human race
had ever been considered as the end and aim of policy. The Moors, the
Pisans, the kings of Aragon, and the Genoese, successively attempted,
and each for a time effected its conquest. The yoke of the Genoese
continued longest, and was the heaviest. These petty tyrants ruled
with an iron rod; and when at any time a patriot rose to resist their
oppressions, if they failed to subdue him by force they resorted to
assassination. At the commencement of the last century they quelled one
revolt by the aid of German auxiliaries, whom the Emperor Charles VI.
sent against a people who had never offended him, and who were fighting
for whatever is most dear to man. In 1734 the war was renewed; and
Theodore, a Westphalian baron, then appeared upon the stage. In that
age men were not accustomed to see adventurers play for kingdoms, and
Theodore became the common talk of Europe. He had served in the
French armies; and having afterwards been noticed both by Ripperda and
Alberoni, their example, perhaps, inflamed a spirit as ambitious and as
unprincipled as their own. He employed the whole of his means in raising
money and procuring arms; then wrote to the leaders of the Corsican
patriots, to offer them considerable assistance, if they would erect
Corsica into an independent kingdom, and elect him king. When he landed
among them, they were struck with his stately person, his dignified
manners, and imposing talents. They believed the magnificent promises of
foreign assistance which he held out, and elected him king accordingly.
Had his means been as he represented them, they could not have acted