At Corte, the capital of the island, he waited boldly upon the Supreme Council. He was gravely received, as befitted a supposed British envoy, and lodged in the apartment of Paoli in a Franciscan convent. Next day, the old petitioner for a commission in the Guards found the first and last military experience of his life. Three French deserters waited on him in the belief that he came to recruit soldiers for Scotland, and 'begged to have the honour of going along with me.' Nor was the idea so absurd as he seems to have viewed it, for from the _Scots Magazine_ of a somewhat later date we learn that British Volunteers and Highlanders disbanded after the wars had been enlisted in the service of Paoli. But it is not improbable that the deserters had heard of Boswell's nationality from the woman of Penrith whom he found in the island, married to a French soldier in the army of the Pretender, whose fortunes she had followed when they had passed through Carlisle on the retreat from Derby. Another feature of Boswell, one whose consideration and explanation we shall attempt later on, now for the first time meets us, his inveterate love for interviewing criminals, and accordingly, 'as I wished to see all things in Corsica,' he had a meeting with the hangman who seemed sensible of his situation. The inhabitants crowded round him at a village as he advanced, and questioned the traveller, as Coleridge at Valetta found himself similarly interrogated, as to his professing himself a Christian when he did not believe in the Pope--_e perche_, and why? The old candidate for the priesthood managed to deftly evade this query by an assurance that in Britain the people were too far off and in a theological climate of their own. He was in the highest humour, and in this unusual flow of spirits he harangued the men of Bastelica with great fluency, getting, however, at Sollacaro somewhat nervous as the interview with the Corsican leader drew nigh. Paoli lived in constant dread of assassination, and the sudden arrival of this mysterious stranger was strongly calculated to arouse suspicions. For ten minutes, in silence, he looked at Boswell, who broke in with the remark that he was a gentleman from Scotland upon his travels and had lately visited Rome from which, having seen the ruins of one brave people, he was now come to view the rise of another. The general was not quite set at ease by this sententiously balanced sentence, and years after he told Miss Burney about his impressions at the time of the mysterious stranger. It shews the ruling passion strong in life, and that Boswell, as 'the chiel' amang them takin' notes,' forgot the rules of ordinary courtesy and prudence in the gratification of his darling method. 'He came to my country sudden,' said Paoli in his broken English, 'and he fetched me some letters of recommending him. And I supposed, in my _mente_ he was in the privacy one espy; for I look away from him to my other companies,