"Meanwhile, rest assured that my creditors will get your property; because those effects of yours, which the Corsicans have legally presented to me, more than suffice for the payment of my debts. Yet it would grieve me much if I should be unable to give a sufficient equivalent to your Republic, for the severity it has exercised towards this kingdom; because no payment seems to be great enough as a requital for this. "Let me not forget likewise herewith to inform you—what, however, you will I daresay have heard—that my progress has been so triumphant, that I have now as many troops in pay as will suffice to show that I am not only able to live at the expense of others, but clever enough to support a thousand men at my own cost. Whether these get their full pay and rations let those heroic soldiers testify, who keep themselves shut up within the walls of Bastia, because they have not the courage to come out into the open field, in order that one may look at them a little nearer. "As to other matters, I assure you that, however much you exert yourselves to asperse my good name in the eyes of the world, I do not fear its having the impression which you imagine on the people here; and I do not doubt but that the ducats which they have got will have a much more powerful effect than all the calumnies which you are perpetually inventing against my person. Still, I must beg you to do me a favour, namely, that in the battles likely to take place between my troops and yours, some of your countrymen may show who it is that commands them, because the heroism which true-hearted citizens must cherish for their fatherland cannot fail to be met with in men such as they are. But I believe that I am not likely to obtain the fulfilment of my request; because, what with their bills of exchange, commercial transactions, and trades, they have so much to do that the spirit of valour can find no place among them. On this account I do not at all expect that you will ever acquire honour with your soldiers; because those who should be at their head possess neither time nor bravery enough to lead them into the field, as the men of other high-souled nations do. "Given in the camp before Bastia, July 10, 1736. "THEODORUS. "SEBASTIANO CORSA, "Secretary of State and High Chancellor of the Kingdom." This savagely-satirical document must certainly have deeply wounded the Genoese Republic. But such is the course of events; the proud mistress of the seas was now sunk low—a little nation not far from her gates made her tremble—a foreign adventurer mocked her with impunity.