The Campaigns and History of the Royal Irish Regiment, [v. 1,] from 1684 to 1902Gretton, G. le M. (George Le Mesurier)
History
The Campaigns and History of the Royal Irish Regiment, [v. 1,] from 1684 to 1902
Gretton, G. le M. (George Le Mesurier)
Great Britain. Army. Royal Irish Regiment
Nothing is known of the doings of the XVIIIth during the remainder
of our short occupation of Corsica, except that several of the
officers were employed on the staff: one of them, Major (afterwards
Lieutenant-General Sir H. T.) Montresor, after acting as Governor
of Calvi, was placed in command of a battalion of islanders, one
of the corps raised for local defence by Sir Gilbert Elliot, who
had been appointed Viceroy of Corsica by the Government at home.
The lives of the officers left at regimental duty must have been
singularly dull, as there was so little communication with England
that letters or papers rarely reached the island, and even the
Ministry, apparently forgetful of the existence of their new
possession, often allowed months to pass without communicating with
Elliot. Some amount of cynical amusement, however, was to be derived
from studying the mental attitude of the population, who, at first
delighted to find themselves British subjects, soon grew weary of the
restraints of law and order enforced upon them by their new rulers.
The Corsicans watched with ever increasing pride the victories in
Italy of their young compatriot, Napoleon Bonaparte; they realised
that the English and their Allies made no headway against France
on land, and they appreciated the importance of Spain’s change of
policy, when after deserting the coalition against the Republic she
placed her Mediterranean fleet at the disposal of our enemy. They
gradually came to the conclusion that in annexing themselves to the
British they had joined the losing side, and when the French troops
overran Tuscany and seized upon Leghorn, the Corsicans began to give
Elliot broad hints that they wished to see the last of him and his
garrison of red-coats. The presence of the French in Leghorn, the
principal port of Tuscany, was a direct menace to us in Corsica;
and as a counterstroke Elliot threw troops into Porto Ferraio, the
capital of the little island of Elba, half way between Bastia and
Leghorn. To the Duke of Tuscany, part of whose dominions Elliot had
thus occupied, the Viceroy justified himself by pointing out that as
Tuscany had been unable to defend her territory on the mainland she
would have been equally impotent to keep the French out of Elba.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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