Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica Part 12

OF

CORSICA,

THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR

TO THAT ISLAND;

AND MEMOIRS OF

PASCAL PAOLI.

BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq;

ILl.u.s.tRATED with a New and Accurate MAP OF CORSICA.

Non enim propter gloriam, divitias aut honores pugnamus, sed propter libertatem solummodo, quam nemo bonus nisi simul c.u.m vita amitt.i.t.

Lit. Comit. et Baron. Scotiae ad Pap. A.D. 1320.

GLASGOW, PRINTED BY ROBERT AND ANDREW FOULIS FOR EDWARD AND CHARLES DILLY IN THE POULTRY, LONDON; MDCCLXVIII.

DEDICATION

TO

PASCAL PAOLI,

GENERAL OF

THE CORSICANS.

SIR,--Dedications are for most part the offerings of interested servility, or the effusions of partial zeal; enumerating the virtues of men in whom no virtues can be found, or predicting greatness to those who afterwards pa.s.s their days in unambitious indolence, and die leaving no memorial of their existence, but a dedication, in which all their merit is confessedly future, and which time has turned into a silent reproach.

He who has any experience of mankind, will be cautious to whom he dedicates. Publickly to bestow praise on merit of which the publick is not sensible, or to raise flattering expectations which are never fulfilled, must sink the character of an authour, and make him appear a cringing parasite, or a fond enthusiast.

I am under no apprehensions of that nature, when I inscribe this book to Pascal Paoli. Your virtues, Sir, are universally acknowledged; they dignify the pages which I venture to present to you; and it is my singular felicity that my book is the voucher of its dedication.

In thus addressing you, my intention is not to attempt your panegyrick.

That may in some measure be collected from my imperfect labours. But I wish to express to the world, the admiration and grat.i.tude with which you have inspired me.

This, Sir, is all the return that I can make for the many favours which you have deigned to confer upon me. I intreat you to receive it as a testimony of my disposition. I regret that I have neither power nor interest to enable me to render any essential service to you and to the brave Corsicans. I can only a.s.sure you of the most fervent wishes of a private gentleman. I have the honour to be, with all respect and affection,

Sir,

Your ever devoted

obliged humble servant

JAMES BOSWELL.

Auchinleck, Ayrs.h.i.+re, 29 October,[68] 1767.

[Footnote 68: Boswell's birthday. The preface to the third edition also bears the date of his birthday.--ED.]

PREFACE.

No apology shall be made for presenting the world with An Account of Corsica. It has been for some time expected from me; and I own that the ardour of publick curiosity has both encouraged and intimidated me. On my return from visiting Corsica, I found people wherever I went, desirous to hear what I could tell them concerning that island and its inhabitants. Unwilling to repeat my tale to every company, I thought it best to promise a book which should speak for me.

But I would not take upon me to do this till I consulted with the General of the nation. I therefore informed him of my design. His answer is perhaps too flattering for me to publish: but I must beg leave to give it as the licence and sanction of this work.

Paoli was pleased to write to me thus; "Nothing can be more generous than your design to publish the observations which you have made upon Corsica. You have seen its natural situation, you have been able to study the manners of its inhabitants, and to see intimately the maxims of their government, of which you know the const.i.tution. This people with an enthusiasm of grat.i.tude, will unite their applause with that of undeceived Europe."

It is amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such n.o.ble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known. Even the succession of chiefs has been unperceived; and because we have read of Paoli being at the head of the Corsicans many years back, and Paoli still appears at their head, the command has been supposed all this time in the person of the same man. Hence all our newspapers have confounded the gallant Pascal Paoli in the vigour of manhood, with the venerable chief his deceased father, Giacinto Paoli. Nay the same errour has found its way into the page of the historian; for Dr. Smollet when mentioning Paoli at the siege of Furiani a few years ago, says he was then past fourscore.

I would in the first place return my most humble thanks to Pascal Paoli, for the various communications with which he has been pleased to favour me; and as I have related his remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour, that I have neither added nor diminished; nay so scrupulous have I been, that I would not make the smallest variation even when my friends thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we read what is perfectly authentick.

Count Rivarola[69] was so good as to return me full and distinct answers to a variety of queries which I sent him with regard to many particulars concerning Corsica. I am much indebted to him for this, and particularly so, from the obliging manner in which he did it.

[Footnote 69: The Sardinian Consul in Corsica. See page 142.--ED.]

The reverend Mr. Burnaby, chaplain to the British factory at Leghorn, made a tour to Corsica in 1766, at the same time with the honourable and reverend Mr. Hervey, now bishop of Cloyne.[70] Mr. Burnaby was absent from Leghorn when I was there, so I had not the pleasure of being personally known to him. But he with great politeness of his own accord, sent me a copy of the Journal which he made of what he observed in Corsica. I had the satisfaction to find that we agreed in every thing which both of us had considered. But I found in his Journal, observations on several things which I had omitted; and several things which I had remarked, I found set in a clearer light. As Mr. Burnaby was so obliging as to allow me to make what use I pleased of his Journal, I have freely interwoven it into my work.

[Footnote 70: The son of Pope's Lord Hervey. He succeeded in 1779 to the Earldom of Bristol.--ED.]

I acknowledge my obligations to my esteemed friend John d.i.c.k Esquire, his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Leghorn, to Signor Gian Quilico Casa Bianca, to the learned Greek physician Signor Stefanopoli, to Colonel b.u.t.tafoco,[71] and to the Abbe Rostini. These gentlemen have all contributed their aid in erecting my little monument to liberty.

[Footnote 71: Colonel b.u.t.tafoco was one of Rousseau's correspondents. At the time of the French Revolution he was elected Deputy from Corsica to the National a.s.sembly. He was most violently attacked by Napoleon Buonaparte in a letter dated "From my closet at Milleli, 23rd January, Year 2." The letter thus begins:--"From Bonifacio to Cape Corso, from Ajaccio to Bastia, there is one chorus of imprecations against you." The writer goes on to say, "Your countrymen, to whom you are an object of horror, will enlighten France as to your character. The wealth, the pensions, the fruits of your treasons, will be taken from you.... O Lameth! O Robespierre! O Petion! O Volney! O Mirabeau! O Barnave! O Bailly! O La Fayette! this is the man who dares to seat himself by your side!"--Scott's "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte," vol. ix., Appendix I.--ED.]

I am also to thank an ingenious gentleman who has favoured me with the translations of Seneca's Epigrams. I made application for this favour, in the "London Chronicle;" and to the honour of literature, I found her votaries very liberal. Several translations were sent, of which I took the liberty to prefer those which had the signature of Patricius, and which were improved by another ingenious correspondent under the signature of Plebeius. By a subsequent application I begged that Patricius would let me know to whom I was obliged for what I considered as a great ornament to my book. He has complied with my request; and I beg leave in this publick manner, to acknowledge that I am indebted for those translations to Thomas Day Esquire,[72] of Berks.h.i.+re, a gentleman whose situation in life is genteel, and his fortune affluent. I must add that although his verses have not only the fire of youth, but the maturity and correctness of age, Mr. Day is no more than nineteen.

[Footnote 72: This is, I believe the author of "Sandford and Merton,"

who was born in 1748, and was nineteen years old at the date of the dedication of Boswell's work. His father had died when Day was a year old, and had left him a fortune of 1,200 a year.--ED.]

Nor can I omit to express my sense of the candour and politeness with which Sir James Steuart received the remark which I have ventured to make in opposition to a pa.s.sage concerning the Corsicans, in his "Inquiry into the principles of Political Oeconomy."