26 OUR CONSTITUTION IN CORSICA

unfortunate Girondist and Royalist refugees from Toulon, and subsequently in endeavouring to cement alliance against the Revolution among the Italian states. He was for the rest of that period on board Lord Hood's flagship the Victory. As soon as the island was taken over by the civil power, it was only natural that the Government should appoint him as Governor.

There was perhaps one defect in his previous training which threatened danger to his success. It is obvious from his own account of himself, and from all the records furnished by his biographer, that he was fully possessed of a view of mankind which was probably pretty nearly universal among the British statesmen of his day, but certainly quite universal among the Whigs; viz., that the one panacea, for all the woes of all the world, was to apply the British Constitution in its then existing form to each of the races upon earth. It has been only the long training of experience that has gradually made us realise that the great value to us of the British Constitution has been that it has adapted itself to the growth of the nation, and, whilst preserving a marvellous conservancy of form, has, in fact, varied very considerably with succeeding generations. Sir Gilbert Elliot was making one of the earliest experiments in attempting to fit the British coat to other backs. From the failure of that attempt much was to be learnt.

Hardly would it have been possible for a man to be placed under more difficult circumstances for the application of his theory. Corsica was a country inhabited by fierce mountaineers. Almost every family had as its most treasured tradition a vendetta against its next neighbour. When, as one of the most valued parts of the British Constitution, trial by jury was