r
interest to enable me to render any essential service to you and to the
brave Corsicans. I can only assure you of the most fervent wishes of a
private gentleman. I have the honour to be, with all respect and
affection,

Sir,

Your ever devoted

obliged humble servant

JAMES BOSWELL.

Auchinleck, Ayrshire,
29 October,[68] 1767.

[Footnote 68: Boswell's birthday. The preface to the third edition also
bears the date of his birthday.--ED.]

PREFACE.

No apology shall be made for presenting the world with An Account of
Corsica. It has been for some time expected from me; and I own that the
ardour of publick curiosity has both encouraged and intimidated me. On
my return from visiting Corsica, I found people wherever I went,
desirous to hear what I could tell them concerning that island and its
inhabitants. Unwilling to repeat my tale to every company, I thought it
best to promise a book which should speak for me.

But I would not take upon me to do this till I consulted with the
General of the nation. I therefore informed him of my design. His answer
is perhaps too flattering for me to publish: but I must beg leave to
give it as the licence and sanction of this work.

Paoli was pleased to write to me thus; "Nothing can be more generous
than your design to publish the observations which you have made upon
Corsica. You have seen its natural situation, you have been able to
study the manners of its inhabitants, and to see intimately the maxims
of their government, of which you know the constitution. This people
with an enthusiasm of gratitude, will unite their applause with that of
undeceived Europe."

* * * * *

It is amazing that an island so 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.

I would in the first place return my most humble than