After a terrible bombardment the Danes, who had suffered most severely, allowed their fire to slacken, and at length to cease. The captured vessels would not, however, yield up possession, so that an irregular firing was still partially kept up; and, in spite of their heavy losses, the Danes declined to withdraw from the confederacy of the neutral powers, or to open their ports to English merchant shipping, until that great confederacy[248] was broken up by the death of Paul I. of Russia. When his successor, Alexander I., ascended the throne, the 24th of March, 1801, his first step was to remove the embargo on merchant shipping, which had been so unjustifiably imposed by his predecessor; he had, indeed, no desire to wage a war of principles against France, and still less against England. The effects of this wise policy were soon apparent throughout Europe. England at once made peace with Russia[249] and the northern powers, and secretly entered into negotiations for the settlement of preliminaries of peace with France. [Sidenote: Peace of Amiens, and its terms.] Both nations were indeed by this time anxious for peace, Napoleon having in view the consolidation of his own personal power, while the English ministry sought repose for the country after a ten years’ war; and the people themselves were equally anxious with their rulers that war should cease. By the treaty it was agreed that England should restore to France, and to the other powers of Europe, all the maritime conquests she had made, with the exception of those parts of India which she had definitively acquired, embracing Ceylon, captured from the Dutch, and Trinidad, wrested from the Spaniards. She proposed, however, to restore the Cape of Good Hope, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo and Surinam to the Dutch; Martinique to the French; Minorca to the Spaniards; and to assign Malta to the still surviving members of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. England also evacuated Porto Ferrajo, which, with the island of Elba, was to be given back to the French. As an equivalent, the French were to evacuate the territory of Naples, that is, the gulf of Otranto, and Egypt, which France has ever been anxious to obtain, was restored to the Porte.