favorite conquest of the war. Letters of con- BOOK vocation were forthwith issued for the Assembly XX. of the General Consulta to be held at Corte, the 1794. antient capital of Corsica, on Sunday the 8th of June 1794, of which general Paoli was elected president. The representatives of the Corsican nation immediately voted the union of Corsica with the British crown, and a constitutional act was framed extremely similar to the French model of 1791, which had been so lately branded by lord Aukland, ambassador at the Hague, as the work of miscreants, and the offspring of presumption and vanity. Sir Gilbert Elliot, representative of his Britannic majesty, formally accept King of Great Bri tain accepts the crown of a Corsican ed this act on his part, and immediately assumed the gift of the magnificent title of Viceroy. "Our minds Corsica from have been prepared by PROVIDENCE," said his convention. Excellency, "for the fate which awaited us. The event of this happy day is only the completion of wishes we had previously formed. To-day our hands are joined, but our hearts have long been united; and our motto should be-Amici e non di ventura.' The most remarkable features of this democratic form of monarchy, which gratuitously granted more than had even been asked by the most daring reformers of Britain, were-the establishment of the right of universal suffragethe dissolution of the legislative body at the end XX. BOOK of two years-no senate or house of noblesmunicipalities chosen by the people in every 1794. pieve or district; and, lastly, the unlimited right of toleration without tests or penal laws. Far from admitting, as was formally required of America, the unlimited and unconditional power of the British legislature to make laws for Corsica in all cases whatsoever, the Constitutional Act merely and coldly says, "That the parliament of Corsica will always manifest its readiness and deference to adopt all regulations, consistent with its present constitution, which shall be enacted by his majesty in his parliament of Great Britain for the extension and advantage of the external commerce of the empire and its dependencies;" which concession plainly amounted to an affirmation of the right of the Corsican parliament to reject such regulations as should not appear to them to have this tendency. The inherent sovereignty of the people is not only implied in the formation of this constitution, by a national convention "possessed," as the preamble of the act says, "of a specific authority for this purpose," but expressly recognised; for the viceroy, in declaring his acceptance of it, "on the part of the sovereign king of Corsica, George III. king of Great Britain," says, "If his majesty, therefore, accepts the crown which you have agreed to offer him, it But XX. is because he is determined to protect, and never BOOK to enslave, those from whom he receives it; and, above all, because it is given, and not seized 1794. upon by violence." Upon the whole, according to the ideas which Mr. Burke and the other virulent declaimers against the French constitution and the mode of its establishment had so long labored to inculcate, this was a most Jacobinical transaction in all its relations. men of a different description saw in it a noble, though unintentional, acknowledgment on the part of the British government that the principles on which the French revolution was originally founded were perfectly just; and that all the dreadful evils consequent upon it arose not from the principles themselves, but from the opposition made to their establishment. By this transaction another crown, such as it was, devolved upon the head of the king of Great Britain; but the advantage which the people of Britain were to reap from this political connection with Corsica never having been explained, must remain among the deep and inscrutable arcana of government. tained over fleet by lord In the month of May, the Brest fleet, amount Victory obing to twenty-six, afterwards increased to thirty, the Brest sail of the line, under the command of admiral Howe. Villaret, anxious for the fate of a large convoy from America, ventured to put to sea, though it XX. BOOK was known that lord Howe, the British admiral, with a superior force, from which, however, he 1794. was obliged to detach a squadron of six ships of the line as convoy with the East India fleet to Cape Finisterre, was cruizing off the harbour to intercept it. Early on the 28th, and before the detached squadron had rejoined the Admiral, the fleets came in view; and, after some distant firing, the English commander having by his masterly manœuvres at length gained the weather-gage of the enemy, bore down upon them with full sail on the 1st of June. A close and desperate engagement ensued, in which the hostile fleets exhibited prodigies of valor. To use the expression of St. André the French commissioner on board" the contest was maintained not merely with courage, but fury; it was the contention of Rome and Carthage." Several ships on both sides were dismasted; and the carnage, particularly on the part of the French, was dreadful. Le Vengeur, of seventy-four guns, went down during the action; and while the lowerdeck ports were actually under water, and destruction was inevitable, the air resounded with the cry of VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE! At length the French admiral, finding the contest too unequal, crowded off, and was followed by those of his ships in a condition to carry sail. Of the others, six remained in possession of the British admiral, XX. and were brought safe into Plymouth. The BOOK French were consoled in some degree for this humiliating defeat by the attainment of the ob- 1794. ject for which they risked the engagement: their American convoy, amounting to 160 sail, valued at five millions sterling, and conveying an immense quantity of provisions and naval stores, arrived safe in port a few days after the engagement, eluding the vigilance of admiral Montague, who on his return with the squadron from Cape Finisterre had taken his station off the harbour of Brest. of the French During this summer wonderful changes took Proceedings place in the interior state and government of Convention. France. Scarcely had the republican party in 1792 accomplished the overthrow of the constitution, than they became themselves divided into two opposite and inveterate factions, that of the Gironde and that of the Mountain. The latter had no sooner enjoyed a horrid and sanguinary triumph over their unfortunate opponents than a second division was observed; and the contest, equally violent with the former, now lay between the Jacobins and the Cordeliers. In the midst, however, of scenes of terror and of death, there are to be found some incidents which tend to soothe and solace the feelings of afflicted humanity. On the 3d of February, 1794, three deputies from the island |