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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 570: TREATY OF AMIENS.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

TREATY OF AMIENS.

Many circumstances rendered the first consul at this time really desirous for some short suspension of hostilities with England. Preliminaries were agreed to on the 1st of October, and in the month of November the Marquis Cornwallis went over to France as ambassador plenipotentiary. He was received with great joy by many of the Parisians, who were equally desirous of peace, as were many of the English nation. From Paris, his lordship repaired to Amiens, the place appointed for holding the conferences; and, after much angry discussion, on the 2nd of March, 1802, a definitive treaty of peace was signed. By this treaty, England agreed to restore all the acquisitions made during the war, except the island of Trinidad, and the Dutch possessions in Ceylon: the Cape of Good Hope was to be given back to the Dutch as a free port: the Porte was to be preserved in its integrity; France was to recognise the republic of the seven islands; apart of Portuguese Guiana was given up to France by a new adjustment of boundaries; and the Prince of Orange was to receive compensation for the loss of property and power. “Thus,” it has been remarked, “ended the first act of the revolutionary war, though most persons thought the whole concluded, fancying that the chief ruler of France would find his real interest in the preservation of peace; and relying on his repeated declaration of regret, that the two first nations of the world should waste their resources and the blood of their people in enmity. Some persons, however, took a different view of the subject, seeing neither indemnity for the past, nor security for the future in the restitution of all our colonial conquest, and in the recognition of that gigantic plan of continental sovereignty which had been conceived by the first founders of the French republic, and pursued with unremitting diligence by its successive rulers.”