They were, indeed, willing to resign a long contested point, and consented that the island of Malta, with the Cape of Good Hope, and other possessions in the East and West Indies, should remain under the dominion of Great Britain. But then they exacted the surrender of Sicily and Naples, proposing that Frederick IV. should be indemnified at the expense of Spain by the cession of the Balearic isles. Britain could not implicitly consent to this last proposition, either in policy, or in justice to her unfortunate ally. Naples was indeed occupied by the French, and had received Joseph Buonaparte as her King; but the insular situation of Sicily rendered it easy for Britain to protect that rich island, which was still in the possession of its legitimate monarch. The principle of _uti possidetis_ was, therefore, in favour of the English, so far as Sicily was concerned, as it was in that of the French in the case of Naples. The English envoy, for this reason, refused an ultimatum, in which the cession of Sicily was made an indispensable article. Lord Lauderdale, at the same time, demanded his passports, which, however, he did not receive for several days, as if there had been some hopes of renewing the treaty.[224] Buonaparte was put to considerable inconvenience by the shrewdness and tenacity of the noble negotiator, and had not forgotten them when, in 1815, he found himself on board the Bellerophon, commanded by a relation of the noble earl.[225] It is indeed probable, that, had Mr. Fox lived, the negotiation might have been renewed. That eminent statesman, then in his last illness, was desirous to accomplish two great objects--peace with France, and the abolition of the slave trade. But although Buonaparte's deference for Fox might have induced him to concede some of the points in dispute, and although the British statesman's desire of peace might have made him relinquish others on the part of England, still, while the two nations retained their relative power and positions, the deep jealousy and mutual animosity which subsisted between them would probably have rendered any peace which could have been made a mere suspension of arms--a hollow and insincere truce, which was almost certain to give way on the slightest occasion. Britain could never have seen with indifference Buonaparte making one stride after another towards universal dominion; and Buonaparte could not long have borne with patience the neighbourhood of our free institutions and our free press; the former of which must have perpetually reminded the French of the liberty they had lost, while the latter was sure to make the Emperor, his government, and his policy, the daily subject of the most severe and unsparing criticism. Even the war with Prussia and Russia, in which Napoleon was soon afterwards engaged, would, in all probability, have renewed the hostilities between France and England, supposing them to have been terminated for a season by a temporary peace.