588 Chapter XXIV
Threatened with subversion, and despite the Viceroy’s pleas for moderation, the
Corsican Parliament behaved like the French Convention during the Terror. At
least the legislation was much the same. There were laws against traitors and émi-
grés. There was a law taking their property from them, and promising it to those
who had sustained losses in the late disturbances. There was a law prescribing
death to émigrés if they returned, and another decreed death for correspondence
with the enemies of Corsica and Great Britain. Another required priests to take an
oath to the constitution. There was a law forbidding unauthorized public assem-
blies, as well as spontaneously formed crowds or attrupamenti. Another suspended
jury trials, and another offered a reward of 5,000 francs for every secret republican
emissary from France that could be apprehended.
Constitution or no constitution, freedom of speech disappeared. In August
1796, the administrative secretary, Frederick North, sent instructions to C. B. But-
tafoco, the King’s attorney at Bastia. It should be remembered that only a few
months before, in England itself, Parliament had curbed political discussion by the
Seditious Meetings and Treasonable Practices Acts. It is necessary, said North to
Buttafoco, to stamp out all signs of the maladetto republicanismo francese. “It will be
a great advantage to persuade all the most notable patriots [a word used by all par-
ties] to prevent by common accord political discussion of any kind; but if this
proves impossible, and if republicanism shows itself in any way, then it will be
necessary to arouse to the utmost the patriotism of the well- affected against the
guilty, and to put these persons under arrest.”^44
In short, a regime ostensibly conservative adopted the features of the radicalism
it denounced. The counter- revolution became the mirror image of the revolution
itself. It was not only Robespierre who pursued the “guilty.” Moderation failed.
Choices were limited. One might choose between monarchy and republicanism,
but there was no real choice between revolution and a peaceful rule of law, or be-
tween revolution and a calm and orderly conservatism.
In any case Corsica soon became untenable by the British. When the Corsican-
born Bonaparte launched into his sensational campaign in north Italy, excitement
in the island got beyond control. The French occupied Leghorn, threatening to
invade; for preliminary propaganda, they found a Leghorn Jewish merchant who
translated into Italian a work on the imminent collapse of British finances, written
by Thomas Paine. The British evacuated, and their chief Corsican supporters be-
came émigrés in their turn. That was the end of the Kingdom of Corsica.
It is ironical to be able to add that the British cabinet, a few weeks later, decided
to offer the island to the Empress of Russia. King George expressed an especial
personal satisfaction at this solution, which was never in fact carried out.
It was the French Republic under whose auspices the innovations of the next
few years in Italy were to be made.
44 M. A. Ambrosi- R., ed. “Gouvernement anglo- corse: correspondance... de Frederic North.. .”
in Bulletin de la Societé des sciences historiques et naturelles de la Corse, Vol. 42 (1922), 191.