The agreement on the Peace Preliminaries was not the end of the Anglo- French negotiations; it was the end, however, of any active fighting. For the next six months further negotiations would continue, slowly and painfully, with the object of converting the preliminary agreement into a fully definitive Treaty of Peace. Meanwhile, the end of the active war did mean that, for the first time since 1793, it was possible to travel relatively freely between Britain and France, and a substantial number of people did so, in both directions, though it seems that, for the moment, more British visited France than the other way about. There are, therefore, three aspects of Franco–British affairs in the next six months: the negotiations for a definitive peace treaty, the experiences of the visitors, and the effects of the new and uncertain peace on the internal affairs of both Britain and France. This chapter will be mainly concerned with the negotiations, but the other aspects cannot be wholly divorced from them. In particular, in Britain the government of Henry Addington had to be even more active in foreign affairs than before, balancing the negotiations with France with the relations with other states, and had to be as vigilant at home. The combination of the difficult peace, firsthand knowledge of what France had become, as gained and disseminated by the visitors, and the government’s measures during the peace, was to be the national foundation for the conduct of the next war. This was soon realised to be not far off, and proved to require a sustained effort for nearly twice as long and to be infinitely more difficult than the preceding war had been.

The news of the Peace Preliminaries’ agreement on 1 October was sent by Addington and Hawkesbury to several of their political colleagues even before their publication. Pitt and Grenville were both told; Lord Malmesbury had declared on 29 September that peace was close, from the elation he saw on Addington’s face. Lord St Vincent waited until the publication of the terms before writing to his admirals: he gave the news to Nelson, who was at Deal, but had to repeat them to Dungeness three days later.