28                ELLIOT DONS MILITARY BOOTS
Elliot proposed that he should become the supreme head of the military force in Corsica. Ultimately, though after a long delay, the Ministry at home agreed to this. As he understood that position, every detail in the defence of this island, and in the organisation of its forces, was to depend on his personal judgment The officers who applauded his views were to be trusted, those whose military judgment differed from his were to be and were dismissed. To the terribly long delays which intervened between his application for these powers and their formal approval, Sir Gilbert Elliot and his biographer attribute in large measure the failure which ultimately attended his government.
There can be no doubt that this delay did very seriously excite patriotic anxiety in the mind of Paoli, always exceedingly suspicious of the ways of statesmen and diplomatists. Nevertheless, for the hesitation of the Ministry there was not a little justification. Having appointed Sir Gilbert Elliot, it was obviously necessary to support him heartily; and this necessity of general administrative probity was from a purely party point of view the more essential, because Sir Gilbert was for the time the most prominent representative abroad of the Pittite Whigs. It was, from a party point of view, as important to maintain their connection with the Government as at a later date it has been to preserve the connection between the Liberal-Unionists and the Conservatives. But the question was one that could hardly have been solved at home without grave consideration. The importance to us of Corsica at the time depended on its efficiency as a fortress. It was practically the exact equivalent of what Malta now is, except that it presented not one only but several harbours, and that these all required armed defence. It