till May 1790. His letter of instructions expressed an opinion that Englishmen should abstain from visiting France, and not out of curiosity run the risk of molestation. On the 20th June 1790, Earl Gower, afterwards Duke of Sutherland, presented Dorset's letters of recall and his own credentials. Gower's despatches speak of the expediency of embassy servants carrying guns or wearing a particular feather in their hats, so as to avoid the insult experienced by the Spanish ambassadress's attendants. English residents applied to him to obtain exemption from the capitation-tax, and information, to which he attached little weight, was offered him of plots for setting fire to English ports or fleets. A French parliamentary committee solicited data respecting transportation to Botany Bay, and he was asked to give facilities for the detection of forged assignats in London. A large importation of English buttons for the National Guard uniforms was extremely displeasing to the Paris button-makers, who threatened to sack shops which sold English goods. Only four days after the Feast of Pikes, the first Bastille anniversary, a number of suspicious foreigners were arrested. There were no English among them, but Gower deemed it necessary to admonish his countrymen to be very careful in word and deed, especially as an opinion had got abroad that both political parties in England had tampered with the French democrats.
