As Truguet sailed impotently off Cagliari, a second French force had been prepared for operations in Northern Sardinia. This force had drawn heavily from Corsica, the French held island to the north which was under the "de facto" command of Corsican independence advocate Pasquale Paoli. Corsica had been invaded and captured by a French army in 1768, and Paoli was pressing for greater autonomy from France in the aftermath of the Revolution. It was Paoli's plan to launch the Northern attack as a diversion to Truguet's operation off the capital, with the island of La Maddalena, a small, heavily fortified position off the northern coast, as the dedicated target. 450 Corsican volunteers were mustered, with Paoli's nephew Colonna Cesari in command. His second deputy was a Corsican artillery officer and political rival of Paoli, the young head of the powerful Bonaparte family, Napoleon.