y years past, been bleeding at all her veins. They are now
closed. But after being so severely exhausted, it will take some time
before she can recover perfect strength." I was also visited by Padre
Leonardo, of whose animating discourse I have made mention in a former
part of this book.

Indeed I should not have been at a loss though my very reverend fathers
had been all my society. I was not in the least looked upon as a
heretick. Difference of faith was forgotten in hospitality. I went about
the convent as if I had been in my own house; and the fathers without
any impropriety of mirth, were yet as chearful as I could desire.

I had two surgeons to attend me at Corte, a Corsican and a Piedmontese;
and I got a little Jesuit's bark from the spiceria, or apothecary's
shop, of the Capuchin convent. I did not however expect to be
effectually cured till I should get to Bastia. I found it was perfectly
safe for me to go thither. There was a kind of truce between the
Corsicans and the French. Paoli had held two different amicable
conferences with M. de Marboeuf their commander in chief, and was so
well with him, that he gave me a letter of recommendation to him.

On one of the days that my ague disturbed me least, I walked from the
convent to Corte, purposely to write a letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson. I
told my revered friend, that from a kind of superstition agreeable in a
certain degree to him, as well as to myself, I had during my travels,
written to him from Loca Solennia, places in some measure sacred. That
as I had written to him from the Tomb of Melancthon, sacred to learning
and piety, I now wrote to him from the palace of Pascal Paoli, sacred to
wisdom and liberty; knowing that however his political principles may
have been represented, he had always a generous zeal for the common
rights of humanity. I gave him a sketch of the great things I had seen
in Corsica, and promised him a more ample relation.[140]

[Footnote 140: "He kept the greater part of my letters very carefully;
and a short time before his death was attentive enough to seal them up
in bundles, and ordered them to be delivered to me, which was
accordingly done. Amongst them I found one, of which I had not made a
copy, and which I own I read with pleasure at the distance of almost
twenty years. It is dated November, 1765, at the palace of Pascal Paoli,
in Corte, and is full of generous enthusiasm. After giving a sketch of what
I had seen and heard in th