extinction of Prussian maritime commerce by British privateers. [126] [Napoleon negotiates with Fox. Offers Hanover to England.] Scarcely was Prussia committed to this ruinous conflict with Great Britain, when Napoleon opened negotiations for peace with Mr. Fox's Government. The first condition required by Great Britain was the restitution of Hanover to King George III. It was unhesitatingly granted by Napoleon. [127] Thus was Prussia to be mocked of its prey, after it had been robbed of all its honour. For the present, however, no rumour of this part of the negotiation reached Berlin. The negotiation itself, which dragged on through several months, turned chiefly upon the future ownership of Sicily. Napoleon had in the first instance agreed that Sicily should be left in the hands of Ferdinand of Naples, who had never been expelled from it by the French. Finding, however, that the Russian envoy d'Oubril, who had been sent to Paris with indefinite instructions by the Emperor Alexander, was willing to separate the cause of Russia from that of England, and to sign a separate peace, Napoleon retracted his promise relating to Sicily, and demanded that this island should be ceded to his brother Joseph. D'Oubril signed Preliminaries on behalf of Russia on the 20th of July, and left the English negotiator to obtain what terms he could. Fox had been willing to recognise the order of things established by Napoleon on the Italian mainland; he would even have ceded Sicily, if Russia had urged this in a joint negotiation; but he was too good a statesman to be cheated out of Sicily by a mere trick. He recalled the English envoy from Paris, and waited for the judgment of the Czar upon the conduct of his own representative. The Czar disavowed d'Oubril's negotiations, and repudiated the treaty which he brought back to St. Petersburg. Napoleon had thus completely overreached himself, and, instead of severing Great Britain and Russia by separate agreements, had only irritated and displeased them both. The negotiations went no further; their importance lay only in the effect which they produced upon Prussia, when Napoleon's offer of Hanover to Great Britain became known at Berlin. [Prussia learns of Napoleon's offer of Hanover to England, Aug. 7.] [Prussia determines on war.]