The history of these brave people is but a melancholy tale.

The island which they inhabit has been abundantly blessed by nature; it has many excellent harbours; and though the MALARIA, or pestilential atmosphere, which is so deadly in many parts of Italy and of the Italian islands, prevails on the eastern coast, the greater part of the country is mountainous and healthy.

It is about 150 miles long, and from 40 to 50 broad; in circumference, some 320; a country large enough, and sufficiently distant from the nearest shores, to have subsisted as an independent state, if the welfare and happiness of the human race had ever been considered as the end and aim of policy.

The Moors, the Pisans, the kings of Aragon, and the Genoese, successively attempted, and each for a time effected its conquest.

The yoke of the Genoese continued longest, and was the heaviest.