THREE:Buonaparte landed at Cannes on the 1st of March. His advanced guard presented themselves before Antibes, and were made prisoners by the garrison. This did not discourage Buonaparte; he advanced by forced marches with his now less than one thousand men, and leaving behind him his train of artillery. Till he reached Dauphin��, however, he received very little encouragement from any party. All the authorities, proprietors, and clergy, stood aloof; only a few peasantry occasionally cried "Vive l'Empereur!" but did not join him. He began to be very uneasy. But on the 7th of March, as he approached Grenoble, Colonel Lab��doy��re, who had been gained over before, came out with an eagle in his hand, and at the gates distributed tricolour cockades, which had been concealed in a drum. Buonaparte advanced alone towards the troops, and called on any one who wished to kill his Emperor to do his pleasure. All cried "Vive l'Empereur!" and crowded round him. General Marchand endeavoured to recall the soldiers to their duty, but in vain.The animosity against the soldiers at Boston was actively kept up. The sentinel could not stand at his post without insult. Every day menaced a conflict. A fictitious account of an affray between the soldiers and the people of New York was circulated at Boston, in which the soldiers were represented as beaten. This gave impetus to the aggressive temper of the Bostonians. On the 2nd of March, a soldier, insulted by the men at Gray's rope-walk, resented it; they came to blows, and the soldier was overpowered. He fetched up some of his comrades, who, in their turn, beat and chased the rope-makers through the town. The passions of the mob were inflamed, and they began to arm themselves for an attack on the soldiery. In a few days the crowd assembled and assaulted a party of them in Dock Square. The officer prudently withdrew them to the barracks. As the evening advanced, the mob increased. They cried, "Turn out, and do for the soldiers!" They attacked and insulted a sentinel at the Custom House. A party of soldiers was sent by Captain Preston to the officers on duty to protect the man. The mob pelted them with pieces of wood, lumps of ice, etc., and denounced them as "cowards," "red-lobster rascals," and the like. The soldiers stood to defend the Custom House till they were fiercely attacked, and at length they fired in self-defence, killed three persons, and wounded several others��one mortally.

THREE:The Duke of Buckingham justly remarks that the task of the Government was from the first an up-hill one, "which nothing but their devotion to their master's service made them continue; but when a thousand unmistakable signs foretold a rebellion if they persevered, they had no alternative but to put an end to the thing with all convenient despatch." The truth is, in this case, victory would have been ruin to the victors. By beating a timely retreat they saved the monarchy. The Tory leaders, however, consoled themselves that they had so damaged the queen's character that even the chiefs of the great Whig families would not wish to have her at the head of the female aristocracy, or to have their wives and daughters at her court. They said: "The stout lady in the magnificent hat and feathers was very well as a source of Ministerial embarrassment; but, much as some of them pretended to decry the evidence against her that was elicited during her trial, they took especial care not to allow her anything resembling an intimacy with[214] their wives or daughters." She was, however, visited after the trial by her son-in-law, Prince Leopold, and by the Duke of Sussex; and for some time the carriages of the highest ladies in the land were at her door. Grateful to Providence for the deliverance she had experienced from the hands of her persecutors, she went in state to St. Paul's to return public thanks to God. But even in this she was subjected to humiliation. An application had been made to have a sermon preached on the occasion, and Archdeacon Bathurst solicited the honour of delivering an appropriate discourse, but the authorities of the Cathedral refused his request, and the ceremony consisted merely of the reading of the morning service. The Bishop of Llandaff stigmatised the service as "a mockery of a religious solemnity, at which every serious Christian must shudder."Lord North, however, was still sufficiently impressed by the solemn warnings of Chatham and others to attempt a conciliatory measure of his own. Accordingly, on the 20th of February, only ten days after his Bill restrictive of the American trade, and whilst it was progressing, he moved in a committee of the whole House, "That if the Legislature of any of the American provinces should propose to make some provision for the common defence, and also for the civil government of that province, and if such proposal shall be approved of by the king and Parliament, it would be proper to forbear, whilst such provision lasted, from levying or proposing any tax, duty, or assessment within the said province."