Pitt now prepared to fulfil his virtual promise to the Irish Catholics. A measure obliterating the ancient lines of civil and religious enmity, and calling to public life a class hitherto treated as alien and hostile to the State, would have been in true consonance with all that was best in Pitt's own statesmanship. But the ignorant bigotry of King George III. was excited against him by men who hated every act of justice or tolerance to Roman Catholics; and it proved of greater force than the genius of the Minister. The old threat of the King's personal enmity was publicly addressed to Pitt's colleague, Dundas, when the proposal for Catholic emancipation was under discussion in the Cabinet; and, with a just regard for his own dignity, Pitt withdrew from office (Feb. 5, 1801), unable to influence a Sovereign who believed his soul to be staked on the letter of the Coronation Oath. The ablest members of Pitt's government, Grenville, Dundas, and Windham, retired with their leader. Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons, became Prime Minister, with colleagues as undistinguished as himself. It was under the government of Addington that the negotiations were begun which resulted in the signature of Preliminaries of Peace in October 1801. [The Peace of 1801.] Pitt himself supported the new Ministry in their policy of peace; Grenville, lately Pitt's Foreign Minister, unsparingly condemned both the cession of the conquered colonies and the policy of granting France peace on any terms whatever. Viewed by the light of our own knowledge of events, the Peace of 1801 appears no more than an unprofitable break in an inevitable war; and perhaps even then the signs of Bonaparte's ambition justified those who, like Grenville, urged the nation to give no truce to France, and to trust to Bonaparte's own injustice to raise us up allies upon the Continent. But, for the moment, peace seemed at least worth a trial. The modes of prosecuting a war of offence were exhausted; the cost of the national defence remained the same. There were no more navies to destroy, no more colonies to seize; the sole means of injuring the enemy was by blockading his ports, and depriving him of his maritime commerce. On the other hand, the possibility of a French invasion required the maintenance of an enormous army and militia in England, and prevented any great reduction in the expenses of the war, which had already added two hundred millions to the National Debt. Nothing was lost by making peace, except certain colonies and military positions which few were anxious to retain. The argument that England could at any moment recover what she now surrendered was indeed a far sounder one than most of those which went to prove that the positions in question were of no real service. Yet even on the latter point there was no want of high authority. It was Nelson himself who assured the House of Lords that neither Malta nor the Cape of Good Hope could ever be of importance to Great Britain.