Certain unofficial efforts in the cause of peace had been made during
the year 1800, by a Frenchman, M. Otto, who had been charged to
proceed to London to treat with the British Government for the
exchange of prisoners. For various reasons his tentative proposals as
to an accommodation between the belligerents had had no issue: but he
continued to reside in London, and quietly sought to bring about a
good understanding. The accession of the Addington Ministry favoured
the opening of negotiations, the new Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
Lord Hawkesbury, announcing His Majesty's desire for peace. Indeed,
the one hope of the new Ministry, and of the king who supported it as
the only alternative to Catholic Emancipation, was bound up with the
cause of peace. In the next chapter it will appear how disastrous were
the results of that strange political situation, when a morbidly
conscientious king clung to the weak Addington, and jeopardised the
interests of Britain, rather than accept a strong Minister and a
measure of religious equality.

Napoleon received Hawkesbury's first overtures, those of March 21st,
1801, with thinly veiled scorn; but the news of Nelson's victory at
Copenhagen and of the assassination of the Czar Paul, the latter of
which wrung from him a cry of rage, ended his hopes of crushing us;
and negotiations were now formally begun. On the 14th of April, Great
Britain demanded that the French should evacuate Egypt, while she
herself would give up Minorca, but retain the following conquests:
Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice,
Ceylon, and (a little later) Curaçoa; while, if the Cape of Good Hope
were restored to the Dutch, it was to be a free port: an indemnity was
also to be found for the Prince of Orange for the loss of his
Netherlands. These claims were declared by Bonaparte to be