The English minister employed on this occasion, first, Lord Yarmouth,[54] one of the _detenus_ of 1803, and afterwards Lord Lauderdale.

For some time strong hopes of a satisfactory conclusion were entertained; but, in the end, the negotiation broke up, on the absolute refusal of Napoleon to concede Malta to England, unless England would permit him to conquer Sicily from the unfortunate sovereign whose Italian Kingdom had already been transferred to his brother Joseph.

Mr.Fox was lost to his country in September, 1806; and Napoleon ever afterwards maintained that, had that great statesman lived, the negotiation would have been resumed, and pushed to a successful close.

Meantime, however, the diplomatic intercourse of the Tuileries and St.James's was at an end, and the course which the negotiation had taken transpired necessarily in Parliament.
It then came out that the article of _Hanover_ had not formed one of the chief difficulties;--in a word, Napoleon had signified that, although the Electorate had been ceded by him to Prussia under the treaty of Vienna, at the close of 1805, Prussia yielding to him in return the principalities of Anspach, Bareuth and Neufchatel, still, if the English Government would agree to abandon Sicily, he, on his part, would offer no opposition to the resumption of Hanover by its rightful sovereign, George III.

This contemptuous treachery being ascertained at Berlin, the ill-smothered rage of the court and nation at length burst into a flame.
The beautiful Queen of Prussia, and Prince Louis, brother to the king, two characters whose high and romantic qualities rendered them the delight and pride of the nation, were foremost to nourish and kindle the popular indignation.