The Virginia Gazette

July 11. By accounts from Leghorn, dated June 20th, which arrived yesterday, we learn that the unfortunate Paoli, having been obliged to retreat before the French to the Pieve of Vvario, where he had only 300 of his followers left, and being surrounded by 4000 of the enemy, called his faithful friends together, and mounting upon a small eminence, addressed them in a most pathetic manner; lamenting that, after bravely opposing the ambitious designs of the Genoese for a number of years, he should live to see the constitution of his country overthrown, and almost all his friends and fellow soldiers either killed or made prisoners. That seeing no prospect at present of opposing the power of France, he thought it necessary to acquaint them that, as no alternative was left but death or slavery, he was determined to cut his way through the enemy, in order to seek some distant land, where, in time, an opportunity might offer for recovering the liberties of their country, or terminating their honourable career, by dying gloriously, as they had lived. After this the brave chief embraced the followers of his fortune, and in the dead of night, having fought his way through the French, escaped to the ruins of a convent on the sea shore, where he concealed himself two days, and then found means to embark on board an English vessel bound to Leghorn, where he arrived on the 16th of last month. His entrance into that harbour had much more the appearance of a triumph than that of a flight. All the English ships saluted him with their artillery, and displayed their colours; and though it rained in the most violent manner when he landed, people of all ranks ran in crowds towards the mole, and received the brave chief with the greatest acclamations of joy.

A letter from Annibal Rostino, Secretary of General Paoli, to his brother at Leghorn, mentions that the General, in his speech to his faithful adherents, a short time before his embarkation, said: "At length, my brave associates, we are reduced to the last extremity. The thirst of gold has accomplished that which a war of thirty years, the envenomed hatred of the Genoese, and force of divers powers of Europe, could not effect. Our unfortunate fellow citizens, seduced and deceived by some corrupted chiefs, went themselves to seek those chains with which they are now bound."