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 plunging that people still lower than ever, in ignorance and slavery.

Their oppression became now, if possible, worse than before. They were inflamed with hotter resentment, and their tyranny formed itself into something of a regular system. Forgetful of every equitable convention that France had established, they exercised, without controul, the utmost rigours of arbitrary power. They permitted nothing to be exported from the island, but to Genoa, where, of necessity, the Corsicans were obliged to sell their merchandise at a very low rate; and in years of scarcity, the island was drained of provisions by a fort of legal plunder. For the inhabitants were forced to bring them to Genoa, so that actual famine was often occasioned in Corsica.

The Genoese did every thing in their power to foment internal dissensions in Corsica, to which the people were naturally too much inclined. These dissensions occasioned the most horrid bloodshed. They reckon that no less than 1 700 Corsicans were assassinated in the space of two years. Assassinations were, in the first place, a certain cause of hatred among the Corsicans, and often between the best families, so that they would not unite in any scheme for the general liberty. And