Book Description

'General Paoli had the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen.' So wrote Boswell of Dr Johnson's first admiring encounter with the famous Corsican statesman in 1769.This engrossing biography of Paoli is the first ever to appear in English. It also provides numerous fascinating sidelights on 18th century European history.Eighteenth century Corsica was a wild country. For over four centuries the Genoese had ruled by exploiting the vendetta. For the island was of great strategic importance in the Mediterranean, and both the French and the English coveted it. The Corsicans themselves wanted only their freedom.At the age of 19 Paoli was chosen by the Corsican nationalists to be their political and military leader: their 'General'. It was 1755.General Paoli was able to unite the clans and succeeded in driving back the Genoese into the coastal towns. He began to organize Corsica as an independent state and to develop the economy. The constitution he conceived and put into practice was more democratic than any of his time. From all over Europe it was acclaimed by leaders of the Enlightenment: Rousseau, Voltaire, Frederick the Great. From England it drew a visit from James Boswell. Paoli, already a hero of the Enlightenment, now became an English hero as well.But in 1768 the Genoese sold the island to the French. After a fierce struggle the Corsicans were defeated by French troops, and Paoli was forced to flee to London where he remained in exile for 20 years, much respected in intellectual circles, a friend of Johnson, Burke and Joshua Reynolds.With the French Revolution he returned in triumph, at the age of 64, but to an uneasy presidency, fraught with plots by ambitious Republicans, including the young Napoleon Bonaparte. Finally outlawed by the Convention in Paris, Paoli invited the British fleet, under Admiral Hood, to take over the island, and in 1794, George III became, briefly, King of Corsica. Disgusted by the misgovernment of Sir Gilbert Elliot who had been appointed Viceroy, Paoli left Corsica in 1795 and began a second exile in England where he died 12 years later. In 1889 his body was exhumed and taken to Corsica for reburial in his native glen.Peter Thrasher was born in Plymouth in 1923 of Cornish and Canadian parentage. He holds two degrees: one in History and one in Civil Engineering. Until 1950 he worked as a Naval Architect, and after that throughout the British Isles as a Civil Engineer. Pasquale Paoli is his first book.39330000605879