ed the French
rule over Egypt.

[Sidenote: The Peace of Amiens.]

Bitter as was the anger with which the First Consul received the news of
this surrender, it only strengthened his resolve to suspend a war of
which Britain only could now reap the fruits, and whose continuance
might in the present temper of Russia and its Czar disturb that peace of
the Continent on which all his plans against England rested. It was to
give time for such an organization of France and its resources as might
enable him to reopen the struggle with other chances of success that the
First Consul opened negotiations for peace at the close of 1801. His
offers were at once met by the English Government. In the actual
settlement of the Continent indeed England saw only an imperfect balance
to the power of France, but it had no means of disputing the settlement,
as France had no means of disturbing its supremacy at sea. If Buonaparte
wished to husband his resources for a new attack all but the wilder
Tories were willing to husband the resources of England for the more
favourable opportunity of renewing it which would come with a revival of
European energy. With such a temper on both sides the conclusion of
peace became easy; and the negotiations which went on through the winter
between England and the three allied Powers of France, Spain, and the
Dutch, brought about in March 1802 the Peace of Amiens. The terms of the
Peace were necessarily simple; for as England had no claim to interfere
with the settlement of the Continent, which had been brought about by
the treaties of its powers with the French Republic, all that remained
for her was to provide that the settlement should be a substantial one
by a pledge on the part of France to withdraw its forces from Southern
Italy, and to leave to themselves the republics it had set up along its
border in Holland, Switzerland, and Piedmont. In exchange for this
pledge England recognized the French government, restored all the
colonies which they had lost, save Ceylon and Trinidad, to France and
its allies, acknowledged the Ionian Islands as a free republic, and
engaged to restore Malta within three months to its old masters, the
Knights of St. John.

[Sidenote: Buonaparte.]

There was a general sense of relief at the close of so long a struggle;
and for a moment the bitter hatred which England had cherished against
France seemed to give place to more friendly feelings. The new French
ambassador was draw