PA'OLI, PASCAL, a famous Corsican patriot, was born in 1726 at Mnrosaglia, in Cor sica. His father, having taken a leading part in the unsuccessful. insurrection of the islanders against the Genoese and their French allies, was obliged to return to Naples in 1739, taking his son with him. Here Paoli received an excellent education. In July, 1755, he was summoned by the supreme magistracy to Corsica, and was elected capt.gen. of the island, and the chief of a democratic government, possessing all the power of a king, but without the He energetically and successfully applied himself to the reformation of the barbarous laws and customs of the island, and at the same time to the expulsion of time Genoese, who, notwithstanding the aid they received from an influential section of the islanders, were deprived of nearly all their strongholds, their fleet was defeated, and they were finally obliged to seek help from France. After the withdrawal of the French troops, they were again speedily deprived of the places they had recaptured, and in 1768 they ceded the island to France. Paoli refused all the advantageous offers by which the French government sought to bribe him, as he had before refused those of the Genoese, and continued to struggle for the independence of his country, but he was signally defeated by the comic de Vaux, at the head of the French troops, and the French became masters of the island. After one year's struggle,
Paoli was compelled to take refuge on board of a British frigate, in which he sailed for England, where lie was treated with general sympathy. Twenty years afterwards, the French revolution of 1789 recalled him to Corsica, and.as a zealous republican lie entered into the schemes of the revolutionary party; but during the anarchy of France in 1792-93 he conceived a scheme for making Corsica an independent republic. Until this time he had been on the best terms with the Bonaparte family, hut they now joined the Jacobin party whilst he allied himself with Britain, favored the landing of 2,000 British troops.
in the island in 1794, and joined them in driving out the French. Ile then surrendered the island to George III., but becoming dissatisfied with the government, he quarreled with the British viceroy, whilst many of his countrymen were displeased with the course he had adopted in allying himself with the British. He therefore retired from the island in 1796, and spent the remainder of his life in the neighborhood of London. Paoli died near London, Feb. 5, 1807.