them to a participation of the culture and felicity of civil life, and accustoming them to consider the Genoese as their fellow subjects, and friends.
They took a direct a contrary course; and, although they did not use so desperate a measure, as that of the Carthaginians, their oppression was heavy; their system was not to render the Corsicans happier and better, but by keeping them in ignorance, and under the most abject submission, to prevent their endeavouring to get free; while Genoa drained the island of all she could possibly get, choosing rather even to have less advantage by tyranny, than to have a much greater advantage, and risk the consequences of permitting to the inhabitants the blessings of freedom.
In this unhappy situation was Corsica. Often did the natives rise in arms; but having no head to direct them, they were immediately quelled. So apprehensive however were the Genoese, that, according to their own historian Filippini, they burnt 120 of the best villages in Corsica, while 4000 people left the island.
What shewed the Genoese policy in the worst light, and could not but be very galling to the Corsicans who remained at home, was, that many
