CHAPTER IV.
RECOMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES—DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE—DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTION OF COSTA.
The imperial ratification was daily expected; but before it arrived, the Genoese Senate allowed the exasperation of defeat and the desire of revenge to hurry it into an action which could not fail to provoke the Corsican people to new revolt. Ceccaldi, Giafferi, the Abbé Aitelli, and Rafaelli, the leaders of the Corsicans who had signed the treaty in the name of their nation, were suddenly seized, and dragged off to Genoa, under the pretext of their entertaining treasonable designs against the state. A vehement cry of protest arose from the whole island: the people hastened to Wachtendonk, and urged upon him that his own honour was compromised in this violent act of the Genoese; they wrote to the Prince of Würtemberg, to the Emperor himself, demanding protection in terms of the treaty. The result was that the Emperor without delay ratified the conditions of peace, and demanded the liberation of the prisoners. All four were set at liberty, but the Senate endeavoured to extract a promise from them never again to return to their country. Ceccaldi went to Spain, where he entered into military service; Rafaelli to Rome; Aitelli and Giafferi to Leghorn, in the vicinity of their native island; where they could observe the course of affairs, which to all appearance could not remain long in their present posture.
On the 15th of June 1733, Wachtendonk and the last of the German troops left the island, which, with the duly ratified instrument of treaty in its possession, now found itself face to face with Genoa. The two deadly foes had hardly exchanged glances, when both were again in arms. Nothing but war to the knife was any longer possible between the Corsicans and the Genoese. In the course of centuries, mutual hate had become a second nature with both. The Genoese citizen came to the island rancorous, intriguing, cunning; the Corsican was suspicious, irritable, defiant, exultingly conscious of his individual manliness, and his nation's tried powers of self-defence. Two or three arrests and attempts at assassination, and the people instantly rose, and gathered in Rostino, round Hyacinth Paoli, an active, resolute, and intrepid burgher of Morosaglia. This was a man of unusual talent, an orator, a poet, and a statesman; for among the rugged Corsicans, men had ripened in the school of misfortune and continual struggle, who were destined to astonish Europe. The people of Rostino named Hyacinth Paoli and Castineta their generals. They had now leaders, therefore, though they were to be considered as provisional.
No sooner had the movement broken out in Rostino, and the struggle with Genoa been once more commenced, than the brave Giafferi threw himself into a vessel, and landed in Corsica. The first general diet was held in Corte, which had been taken by storm. War was unanimously declared against Genoa, and it was resolved to place the island under the protection of the King of Spain, whose standard was now unfurled in Corte. The canon, Orticoni, was sent to the court of Madrid to give expression to this wish on the part of the Corsican people.
Don Luis Giafferi was again appointed general, and this talented commander succeeded, in the course of the year 1734, in depriving the Genoese of all their possessions in the island, except the fortified ports. In the year 1735, he called a general assembly of the people in Corte. On this occasion he demanded Hyacinth Paoli as his colleague, and this having been agreed to, the advocate, Sebastiano Costa, was appointed to draw up the scheme of a constitution. This remarkable assembly affirmed the independence of the Corsican people, and the perpetual separation of Corsica from Genoa; and announced as leading features in the new arrangements—the self-government of the people in its parliament; a junta of six, named by parliament, and renewed every three months, to accompany the generals as the parliament's representatives; a civil board of four, intrusted with the oversight of the courts of justice, of the finances, and of commercial interests. The people in its assemblies was declared the alone source of law. A statute-book was to be composed by the highest junta.
Such were the prominent features of a constitution sketched by the Corsican Costa, and approved of in the year 1735, when universal political barbarism still prevailed upon the Continent, by a people in regard to which the obscure rumour went that it was horribly wild and uncivilized. It appears, therefore, that nations are not always educated for freedom and independence by science, wealth, or brilliant circumstances of political prominence; oftener perhaps by poverty, misfortune, and love for their country. A little people, without literature, without trade, had thus in obscurity, and without assistance, outstripped the most cultivated nations of Europe in political wisdom and in humanity; its constitution had not sprung from the hot-bed of philosophical systems—it had ripened upon the soil of its material necessities.
Giafferi, Ceccaldi, and Hyacinth Paoli had all three been placed at the head of affairs. Orticoni had returned from his mission to Spain, with the answer that his catholic Majesty declined taking Corsica under his special protection, but declared that he would not support Genoa with troops. The Corsicans, therefore, as they could reckon on no protection from any earthly potentate, now did as some of the Italian republics had done during the Middle Ages, placed themselves by general consent under the guardian care of the Virgin Mary, whose picture henceforth figured on the standards of the country; and they chose Jesus Christ for their gonfaloniere, or standard-bearer.
Genoa—which the German Emperor, involved in the affairs of Poland, could not now assist—was meanwhile exerting itself to the utmost to reduce the Corsicans to subjection. The republic first sent Felix Pinelli, the former cruel governor, and then her bravest general, Paul Battista Rivarola, with all the troops that could be raised. The situation of the Corsicans was certainly desperate. They were destitute of all the necessaries for carrying on the war; the country was completely exhausted, and the Genoese cruisers prevented importation from abroad. Their distress was such that they even made proposals for peace, to which, however, Genoa refused to listen. The whole island was under blockade; all commercial intercourse was at an end; vessels from Leghorn had been captured; there was a deficiency of arms, particularly of fire-arms, and they had no powder. Their embarrassments had become almost insupportable, when, one day, two strange vessels came to anchor in the gulf of Isola Rossa, and began to discharge a heavy cargo of victuals and warlike stores—gifts for the Corsicans from unknown and mysterious donors. The captains of the vessels scorned all remuneration, and only asked the favour of some Corsican wine in which to drink the brave nation's welfare. They then put out to sea again amidst the blessings of the multitude who had assembled on the shore to see their foreign benefactors. This little token of foreign sympathy fairly intoxicated the poor Corsicans. Their joy was indescribable; they rang the bells in all the villages; they said to one another that Divine Providence, and the Blessed Virgin, had sent their rescuing angels to the unhappy island, and their hopes grew lively that some foreign power would at length bestow its protection on the Corsicans. The moral impression produced by this event was so powerful, that the Genoese feared what the Corsicans hoped, and immediately commenced treating for peace. But it was now the turn of the Corsicans to be obstinate.
Generous Englishmen had equipped these two ships, friends of liberty, and admirers of Corsican heroism. Their magnanimity was soon to come into conflict with their patriotism, through the revolt of North America. The English supply of arms and ammunition enabled the Corsicans to storm Aleria, where they made a prize of four pieces of cannon. They now laid siege to Calvi and Bastia. But their situation was becoming every moment more helpless and desperate. All their resources were again spent, and still no foreign power interfered. In those days the Corsicans waited in an almost religious suspense; they were like the Jews under the Maccabees, when they hoped for a Messiah.