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His connection was at first with the Jacobins, although he afterwards denied it. He had imbibed the ideas of the Revolution, and saw that in the service of the leaders in the war there was opened to him a military career. He turned against his patriotic countryman, Paoli, when the latter sought to separate Corsica from France, at that time under the Jacobin rule.
The same pen wrote of Paoli that by following traditional lines he had not only shown in the constitution he framed for Corsica a historic intuition, but also had found "in his unparalleled activity, in his warm, persuasive eloquence, in his adroit and far-seeing genius," a means to guarantee it against the attacks of wicked foes.
The Frenchmen halted, and the officer, after apparently giving his men some brief instructions in a low tone of voice, advanced towards us, raising his shako as he joined us, and saying, "Have I the honour to address Count Lorenzo di Paoli?" "I am the individual whom you name," replied the count. "To what circumstance am I indebted for the honour of this somewhat extraordinary visit?"
This court acquitted "him with the highest honors," a conclusion approved by General Washington. Wayne's residence was searched by the British immediately after the Paoli fight, with the hope of capturing the general. The officer, in his zeal, ripped open a feather-bed with his sword. Mrs. Wayne indignantly exclaimed, "Did you expect to find General Wayne in a feather-bed?
Moreover, Napoleon's young brother, Lucien, had secretly denounced Paoli to the French authorities at Toulon; and three commissioners were now sent from Paris charged with orders to disband the Corsican National Guards, and to place the Corsican dictator under the orders of the French general commanding the army of Italy. A game of truly Macchiavellian skill is now played.
We surround him, we embrace him, we try to get his name on one of our lists, and, in case he resists, if he will subscribe neither to the Paoli monument nor to the Corsican railways, then those gentry perform what they call my pen blushes to write it what they call "the drayman trick."
We had avenged Paoli at Germantown, yet this added another wreath to our banner. It was a thing to stir the blood and to set the pulses bounding to hear how those heroes fought under the crumbling walls of Mifflin, and prayed for the friendly cover of night to fall to hide them from that storm of fire and shell, and yet fought on.
Last night it occurred to me that it was in some prologue or epilogue; and my little book-room being very rich in the drama, I have looked through many hundreds of those bits of rhyme, and at last made a discovery, which, if it have no other good effect, will at least have 'emptied my head of Corsica, as Johnson said to Boswell; for never was the great biographer more haunted by the thought of Paoli than I by that line.
Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 6: 'Tomorrow I am to dine, as I did yesterday, with Dr. Taylor. On Wednesday I am to dine with Oglethorpe; and on Thursday with Paoli. He that sees before him to his third dinner has a long prospect. Piozzi Letters, i. 320. See ante, May 12, 1775.
Buonaparte writes of Paoli as having been ever "surrounded by enthusiasts, and as failing to understand in a man any other passion than fanaticism for liberty and independence," and as duped by Buttafuoco in 1768. The phrase has an obvious reference to the Paoli of 1791, surrounded by men who had shared his long exile and regarded the English constitution as their model.
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