Next seeking evidence of the kind of
behavior he believed his countrymen would have no trouble identifying as wholly
dishonorable – and which, by comparison, might expose the dishonor in the
actions of the North Ministry – Price turned his attention to a wide swath of
European history ranging from the recent past to distant antiquity. The first
of four examples he thus endeavored to present was one which could not but have
still been fresh in the minds of his prospective audience, encompassing, as it
did, events which took place less than a decade prior. “How have we felt for
the brave Corsicans,” Price
accordingly inquired, “In their struggle with the Genoese, and afterwards with the French government?” The occasion being referred to was the
so-called “Corsican Crisis” of 1768-69, the outcome of which had caused the
downfall of the government of the Duke of Grafton (1735-1811). Corsica, being a
small island in the Mediterranean Sea located south of the coast of Liguria and
north of the larger island of Sardinia, had been under the control of the
Republic of Genoa for the better part of five centuries when, in the 1750s, a
revolt broke out among its native inhabitants. The revolutionaries, led by one
Pasquale Paoli (1725-1807), managed to successfully fight off Genoese
authorities for nine years, at which point – despairing of success – the Genoese
turned to the Kingdom of France for aid. France obliged, dispatched troops to
the island in 1764, and erected a blockade of its major fortresses and ports.
When this effort likewise resulted in failure – and with the Genoese now in
debt to France for their assistance – a treaty was signed in 1768 whereby
Corsica was effectively sold to the French in exchange for their forgiveness of
Genoa’s obligations.
The point at which this ostensibly
regional power struggle became a matter of international importance – to the
point of collapsing a British government by its outcome – lay chiefly in the
relationship which the aforementioned Paoli sought to forge between his own
provisional government and that of Great Britain. Under the leadership of
Paoli, the self-proclaimed Corsican Republic adopted an exceedingly liberal
constitution whereby all men aged twenty-five or above possessed the right to
elect representatives every three years to a national legislature that met in
the capital of Corte. News of this development – and of Paoli’s noted
admiration for the British form of government – was well-received by
authorities in Britain, many of whom both sympathized with the Corsican plight
and perceived in the rebellion a means of thwarting the territorial ambitions
of the Kingdom of France. In spite of these warm feelings towards the people of
Corsica, however, the government of the Duke of Grafton declined to intervene
upon France’s invasion of the island in 1768. While both Grafton and his
foreign secretary, future Prime Minister Lord Shelburne (1737-1809), expressed
alarm at the Corsican’s increasingly desperate state of affairs, they both
likewise agreed that Britain was neither equipped nor inclined to interfere.
Events then playing out in Britain’s American dependencies appeared to them of
more pressing concern, and it was felt by them safer to appease the French than
antagonize them unnecessarily.
The result, for the Grafton
ministry, was something of a paradox. Thanks to the efforts of people like James
Boswell (1740-1795), a Scottish biographer who popularized sympathy for Corsica
with the publication of a first-hand account of his 1765 journey to the island,
British public opinion was very much on the side of military intervention.
Donations were solicited and dispatched to the embattled islanders, a brace of
cannons was ordered and sent from the famous Carron Ironworks in Falkirk, and
public agitation steadily mounted for some form of rescue, either by Britain
alone or in alliance with other states. Unfortunately for the Grafton Ministry,
neither option appeared at that time to be particularly attractive. Having lost
most of its traditional allies in the aftermath of the Seven Years War
(1754-1763), Britain was in the midst of a period of diplomatic isolation at
the time that the Corsican Crisis emerged. What little effort the
aforementioned Shelburne expended to forge an anti-French coalition accordingly
met with a lukewarm reception, and such efforts were ultimately and quickly
suspended. As unilateral action at the same time appeared unwise due to the
resources it would draw away from the increasingly restive American colonies,
Grafton opted instead to do nothing at all. In due course, this proved a
disastrous choice for Britain’s global reputation and the integrity of its
government.
The French managed
to inflict a final and crushing defeat upon the Corsicans at the Battle of
Ponte Novu in May 1769, thus bringing an end to the Corsican Republic and
driving many of its leaders – including Paoli himself – into exile abroad. In
light of Britain’s accompanying inaction, authorities in France thereafter
concluded that though the British still likely possessed the most powerful
fleet in the world, their evident unwillingness to use it substantially reduced
the threat it might have presented to French ambitions in Europe and elsewhere.
Potential British allies were likewise dismayed by Grafton’s willingness to
stand by in the face of French aggression, causing Britain’s political
isolation to deepen even further. At home, meanwhile, the Grafton ministry was
beset internally by ministerial disagreements and externally by a series of
anonymous and highly critical letters under the penname “Junius” published in
the London Public Advertiser
beginning in January 1769. Seeing no way to recover from the associated
setbacks – the loss of prestige among the nations of Europe, the loss of
confidence among the British people – Grafton resigned in January, 1770 in
favor of his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord North.
The conclusion
which Richard Price attempted to draw from this series of events some eight
years later in 1776 was essentially that the behavior of the Genoese and the
French vis-à-vis their nominal Corsican subjects – a source of intense public
displeasure in Britain at the time – was in fact no worse than the manner in
which the North Ministry had thus far conducted itself in relation to the
Thirteen Colonies. “Did GENOA [,]” he accordingly inquired, “Or FRANCE want
more than an absolute command over their property and legislations; or the
power of binding them in all cases whatsoever?” The answer to this question,
though left unvoiced by Price, was an implicit “no,” thereby drawing a parallel
between Britain’s claimed power to make such, “Laws and statutes [as] to bind
the colonies and people of America [...] in all cases whatsoever” and
France’s successful campaign to stamp out the liberal Corsican Republic and
establish itself as the sole authority on the island. Truly, Price thus begged
his readers consider, what was the difference? If, indeed, there were none, the
implications became increasingly sinister.
The Corsicans, for
example, had initially been subjects of the Republic of Genoa, and were then
effectively traded to France in exchange for the forgiveness of a debt. “All
such cessions of one people to another,” Price declared, “Are disgraceful to
human nature. But if our claims are just, may not we also, if we please, CEDE
the Colonies to France?” Again, the
purpose of this kind of comparison was to cast doubt on the relevant policy of
the sitting British government. If, as Price affirmed, the North Ministry
regarded the colonies in essentially the same manner as the Genoese and the French
had regarded Corsica, then it stood to reason that Lord North could, if he so
desired, sell, cede, or donate Virginia, Massachusetts, or indeed any one of
their number to any foreign power for any reason. Such an action would, after
all, have fallen well within the bounds of “binding” the colonies “in all cases
whatsoever,” and woe betide any authority in America who would dare to argue
against it. The only guarantee with which the luckless colonists might take
comfort – indeed, the principle difference Price was willing to admit between
the Franco-Corsican relationship and that which existed between Britain and
America – was the fact that, “The Corsicans
were not descended from the people who governed them, but that the Americans are.” Sentiment, then, was the
only check on the British government’s use of a power which it tacitly claimed
to hold. Having lately witnessed the extent of British sentiment – at Lexington
and Concord and at Bunker Hill – the inhabitants of America thus protected from
being treated like chattel could surely have been forgiven for finding this
cold comfort indeed.
Price’s aim, of
course, was as much to shame his countrymen into righteous action as offer
sympathy to the suffering inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies. Citing the Corsican
Crisis arguably helped to accomplish the former by both recalling the feelings
of anger and frustration its outcome had inspired as well as casting the
government of Lord North in the same role in 1776 as the aggressive and
imperious French had played in 1769. A less flattering comparison would indeed have
been difficult to conceive of, France being Britain’s inveterate rival for
continental – and, increasingly, global – hegemony and as well as its spiritual
and moral opposite. Whereas the British held fast to the Anglican faith – a
religion, they claimed, befitting a free people – the French were dedicated
Catholics whose practices appeared to mainstream British perception to be invariably
steeped in superstition, secrecy, and an excessive submission to authority.
Likewise, while the British people beheld their system of government – over
which every county and borough could claim its share of influence – with
surpassing pride, their counterparts in France were comparatively uninvolved in
their country’s administration, power having long been concentrated in the
hands of the monarch, his ministers, the aristocracy, and the church. Granting
that reality was, as ever, more complicated than these generalization otherwise
indicate – Britain having had its share of Catholic, France its share of
Protestants, and neither government being as virtuous or as tyrannical as most
British observers would have claimed – contemporary British sentiment towards
France nonetheless largely pivoted on exactly these kinds of
oversimplifications and half-formed prejudices. For Price to equate Great
Britain with France, therefore, in the context of the contemporary
Anglo-American relationship, would have been more or less the equivalent of
accusing an exceptionally pious Christian of giving aid and comfort to Satan
himself. Provided that the claim was not dismissed out of hand, one might
fairly expect a great deal of soul-searching to follow as the accused
endeavored to account for their transgressions and make sincere and immediate
amends.
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