THEODORE ANTHONY I. KING OF CORSICA. 383 
^vhich he made ridiculous ; and the pride of the pulpit, which he so 
egregiously disgraced ; but having blunted and worn out that interior 
feeling, which is the instinct of the good man, and the wisdom of the 
wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the decorum of life 
was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to live on the fol- 
lies of the people ; and his sordid nature had changed him, till he 
crept along, licking the dust with the serpent. 
Theodore Anthony L, King of Corsica. 
This personage, baron NiewhofF, grandee of Spain, baron of Eng- 
land, peer of France, baron of the holy empire, prince of the papal 
throne, (for this he styled himself,) “a man whose chain to royalty,’^ 
says lord Orford, “was as indisputable, as the most able titles to any 
monarchy can pretend to be,’’ was born at Metz, about 1696. The 
particulars of his eventful history are thus related. 
In March, 1736, while the Corsican malcontents were sitting in 
council, an English vessel from Tunis, with a passport from our con- 
sul there, arrived at a port then in possession of the malcontents. 
A stranger on board this vessel, who had the appearance of a person 
of distinction, no sooner went on shore, but was received with singu- 
lar honours by the principal persons, who saluted him with the titles 
of excellency, and viceroy of Corsica. His attendants consisted of • 
two officers, a secretary, a chaplain, a few domestic and Morocco 
slaves. He was conducted to the bishop’s palace ; called himself 
lord Theodore, whilst the chiefs knew more about him than they 
thought convenient to declare. From the vessel that brought him 
were debarked ten pieces of cannon, four thousand firelocks, three 
thousand pair of shoes, a great quantity of provisions, and coin to the 
amount of twenty thousand ducats. Two pieces of cannon were placed 
before his door, and he had four thousand soldiers posted for his 
guard. He created officers, twenty-four companies of soldiers, dis- 
tributed among the malcontents the arms and shoes he had brought 
with him, conferred knighthood on one of his chiefs, appointed another 
his treasurer, and professed the Roman Catholic religion. Various 
conjectures were formed in different courts concerning him. The 
eldest son of the pretender, prince Ragotski, the duke de Ripperda, 
comte de Bonneval, were each in their turns supposed to be this 
stranger ; all Europe was puzzled : but the country of this stranger 
was soon discovered ; he was, in fact, a Prussian, well known by the 
name of Theodore Anthony, baron of NiewhofF. 
Theodore was a knight of the Teutonic order, had successively been 
in the service of several German princes, had seen Holland, England, 
France, and Portugal ; gained the confidence of the great at Lisbon, 
and passed there for a charg6-des-afFaires from the emperor. This 
extraordinary man, with an agreeable person, had resolution, strong 
natural parts, and was capable of any enterprise. He was about 
fifty years of age. Upon his first landing, the chiefs of the Corsicans 
publicly declared to the people, that it was to him they were to be 
indebted for their liberties, and that be jjad arrived in order to deliver 
the island from the tyrannical oppressions of the Genoese. The 
