XIII.

BOOK existed a strong probability that they would ultimately succeed in the establishment of their

1764. liberty and independence.

England, during the high tide of her successes, had demonstrated her regard to the pretended rights of the republic, by scrupulously refraining from all intercourse with the Corsicans, though it would surely have been highly becoming her dignity, and that passionate attach. ment to freedom by which she was herself characterized, to have interposed her powerful inAuence in order to secure, as with the most perfect ease she might incontrovertibly have done, to these heroic islanders the blessings of peace and liberty. But never, never hath an instance of national generosity, similar to this, found a place in the records of history. On the contrary, a proclamation was issued, under the administration of lord Bute, strictly prohibiting the subjects of England from granting aid or assistance to the Corsican REBELS; and the republic of Genoa still persisted in her fruitless and ruinous efforts to reduce them to absolute submission. At length, general Matra, the Genoese commander, being defeated with great loss in an engagement with the insurgents near Furiani; and Bastia, the capital of the island, appearing in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the Corsicans (who, in July 1755, had elected, as their chief,

XIII.

1764.

Pascal Paoli, son of Giacinto); the senate of BOOK Genoa was compelled to make a formal application for assistance to the most Christian king, the ally of the republic; and in August 1764, a convention was signed at Compeigne, importing, that his most Christian majesty, in consideration of a certain stipulated subsidy, should send a considerable force, both naval and military, to the island of Corsica; the latter there to remain for the term of four years, if needful; and on the restoration of peace, his most Christian majesty consented to guarantee the island to the republic. The Corsicans, however, justly alarmed at this interference, resolved, with inflexible constancy, to defend their liberties at whatever risk, fully and immovably determined to endure every extremity rather than submit themselves and their posterity to the insupportable yoke of Genoese tyranny and slavery. At the same time general Paoli was commissioned, respectfully to represent to his most Christian majesty, in the name of the Corsican nation, the injury he was doing to the free Corsicans, by sending his troops thither at the time they were upon the point of driving their enemies out of their island. And well knowing how unavailing this representation would probably prove, they charged their chief to solicit at the different courts of Europe, particularly those of Vienna and

XIIL

BOOK London, their mediation with his most Christian ~ majesty, and to implore their protection in de1764. fence of their rights and liberties. These ap

plications, however, were doubtless received with coldness or contempt; for the French troops under the marquis de Marbœuf arrived, without any impediment, at the place of their destination within or about the end of the year, and were immediately put into possession of the principal fortresses of Corsica yet remaining in the hands of the Genoese.

In this general review of foreign politics, scarcely can be accounted worthy of mention, the dispute subsisting between his Britannic majesty, as elector of Hanover, and the chapter of Osnaburg, to the bishopric of which the king of England had, agrecably to the provisions of the treaty of Westphalia, nominated his second son prince Frederic; during the minority of whom it became a subject of doubt and discussion, to whom belonged the administration of the temporalities of the see, and the comitial suffrage in the diet of the empire-the appointment of an infant bishop being a new case in ecclesiastical history. In a contest so unequal, it will easily be supposed that, on an appeal to the diet now assembled at Ratisbon, a decision was given without hesitation in favor of the monarch.

It remains only to be remarked, that on the

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~

30th of December, 1765, died at Rome, in afar BOOK advanced age, the famous chevalier de St. George, only son of the late king James II. Demise of Born with the prospect of inheriting three power-der. ful kingdoms, he experienced, during the course of a long life, only a succession of misfortunes. So entirely had he survived his political consequence, that the intelligence of his death was received in Great Britain with the utmost coldness and indifference; though his pretensions to the British crown had, within the memory of the majority of persons living, excited the highest apprehension and alarm. And these claims, however futile in themselves, or with whatever serious mischief to the state attended, were at least productive of this good consequence, that they compelled the reigning family perpetually to recur to those great principles of liberty, civil and religious, on which their own title to the crown was founded. But the annihilation of all competition will too naturally lead to the revival of those high and lofty ideas of regal authority so flattering to the pride and ambition of kings, but which in this country, at least, cannot be acted upon but at their utmost peril. The chevalier left two sons, upon the eldest of whom devolved that shadow of a shade, the divine and indefeasible right of succession to the throne of Great Britain. The younger, edu

BOOK cated an ecclesiastic, had been advanced to the XIII. purple under the appellation of cardinal of York ; 1764. and he is at this moment (September 1796) the

last surviving male of the ancient and royal house of Stuart, which, having been precipitated from the height of regal sovereignty in consequence of its attachment to the catholic faith, thus, to close and consummate its glories, pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven."

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