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PREFACE.

lative to the subject. I am thus enabled to lay before the world such An Account of Corsica, as I flatter myself will give some satisfaction; for, in comparison of the very little that has been hitherto known concerning that island, this book may be said to contain a great deal.

It is indeed amazing that an island of considerable, and in which such noble 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.