Thus it is necessary to push them [the negotiations] to a conclusion before Vendemiaire 10." The advantages of an irresponsible autocrat in negotiating with a Ministry dependent on Parliament have rarely been more signally shown.
Anxious to gain popularity, and unable to stem the popular movement for peace, Addington and Hawkesbury yielded to this request for a fixed limit of time; and the preliminaries of peace were signed at London on October 1st, 1801, the very day before the news arrived there that one of our demands was rendered useless by the actual surrender of the French in Egypt.[174] The chief conditions of the preliminaries were as follows: Great Britain restored to France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic all their possessions and colonies recently conquered by her except Trinidad and Ceylon.

The Cape of Good Hope was given back to the Dutch, but remained open to British and French commerce.

Malta was to be restored to the Order of St.John, and placed under the guarantee and protection of a third Power to be agreed on in the definitive treaty.
Egypt returned to the control of the Sublime Porte.

The existing possessions of Portugal (that is, exclusive of Olivenza) were preserved intact.

The French agreed to loose their hold on the Kingdom of Naples and the Roman territory; while the British were also to evacuate Porto Ferrajo (Elba) and the other ports and islands which they held in the Mediterranean and Adriatic.