The campaign centred on sieges of three principal towns in Northern Corsica; San Fiorenzo, Bastia and Calvi, which were in turn surrounded, besieged and bombarded until by August 1794 French forces had been driven from the island entirely.

By late 1796, with the French victorious in Northern Italy and the Spanish declaration of war on Britain following the Treaty of San Ildefonso, British control of Corsica was no longer tenable.

Corsica is a large, mountainous island in the Ligurian Sea, a region of the Mediterranean bordered by Western Spain, Southern France and Northwestern Italy.

[4] Following the French Revolution in 1789 the chaotic political situation and fervent spread of republicanism revived the Corsican independence movement and encouraged Paoli, living in exile for 22 years, to return.

[6][7] By early 1793, during the political repression of the Reign of Terror in mainland France, Paoli found himself threatened with arrest by representatives of the French National Convention.

[8] In response, Paoli ordered his followers to form irregular partisan units which swiftly drove the French military garrison into the three northern towns of San Fiorenzo, Calvi and the capital of Bastia.

[13] Corsican affairs were however a secondary priority for Hood, as shortly after his arrival the citizens of Toulon overthrew their republican government and, with British encouragement, declared for the deposed French monarchy.

[15] On 18 December 1793 the French seized the heights overlooking the harbour and the British fleet was forced to hastily withdraw, carrying thousands of royalist refugees.

[17] At Paoli's urging, Hood had sent a small squadron to Corsica during the siege of Toulon under Commodore Robert Linzee, with instructions to appeal to the French garrisons of Bastia and Calvi to surrender.

[20] This force landed at San Fiorenzo and Bastia, and with these troops the French were able to launch limited counter attacks against the Corsican irregulars, recapturing the town of Farinole and most of the Cap Corse region.

[27] The Torra di Mortella was ineffectually attacked first from the sea on 8 February by a small naval squadron, during which HMS Fortitude was hit with several heated shot which ignited an ammunition box and killed six men and wounded another 56.

[32] The attack did not therefore take place until 4 April, when a force of 1,450 British troops under Colonel William Villettes and Captain Nelson landed north of the town.

[34] For 14 days the town was bombarded from batteries Moore erected on heights overlooking the defences, Hood impatient for a surrender from the French commander, Lacombe-Saint-Michel.

[35] On 12 May Lacombe-Saint-Michel escaped from the town to return to France, and ten days later, with food reserves depleted and nearly a quarter of the garrison sick or wounded, his deputy Antoine Gentili surrendered to Hood offshore.

[36][37] The terms of the surrender allowed the French forces safe passage back to France and were highly controversial with the Corsicans, who protested strongly but were ignored.

The British forces landed on 17 June outside the town under the command of Charles Stuart and Nelson and dragged cannon over the mountains to erect batteries overlooking the forts.

A large breach was blown in the walls of Mozello,[42] but counter battery fire caused significant casualties in the British gun crews, including Nelson, who was blinded in one eye.

[45] On 18 July Stuart ordered Moore and David Wemyss to lead an attack on the fort, which was taken in a fierce battle following hand-to-hand fighting on the walls.

Danger to Corsica from the sea remained an ever-present concern; in August 1794 the 16-gun HMS Scout was escorting the Corsican coral fishing fleet off Cape Bon when it was attacked and captured by two French frigates.

[51] At about the same time, Elliott was also engaged in preventing Paoli from enacting reprisals and seizing the property of French-supporters in Corsica, a violation of the terms of surrender.

[40] These divisions only widened as the relationship continued; in 1795 the British established an Extraordinary Commission which ostensibly investigated crime on the island, but also considered matters of treason.

Eventually, unable to effectively crush the rebellion and with French agents operating openly on the island, Elliot placated some rebels and pacified others achieving some stability by October.

[64] Eight years later, when the British government was designing invasion defences during the Napoleonic Wars, the resistance of the Torra di Mortella in 1794 was recalled, and sketches were rediscovered.