Fouché, who, unknown to the Emperor, had already sent a private agent to London to discuss with the British Cabinet possible conditions of peace, entered enthusiastically into the project and designated Pierre-César as in every way the most suitable person to be entrusted with the affair. His position in the world of business as a partner of Hope in Amsterdam and of Baring in London was of the highest, and his father-in-law, Sir Francis Baring, who had been one of the principal directors of "John Company," was an intimate friend of Wellesley, the English Foreign Secretary, with whom he had spent some time in India. Labouchère was to present himself informally to Wellesley, {6} not as an envoy of the King of Holland and still less as the mouthpiece of Napoleon, but in the names of Roell, Van Der Heim, and Mollerus, three Dutch statesmen who professed to have been initiated by their King into all the secrets of the French Cabinet. He was to explain to the English Foreign Secretary that the marriage of Napoleon had altered his position and had caused him to desire the peace of Europe as a necessary condition of the consolidation of his Empire, and that, in order to induce the English Government to abandon hostilities, he was prepared to forego his intention of uniting Holland to his dominions. The Dutch Cabinet, aware of the Emperor's views, had hastened to open informal communications in order at one stroke to secure the peace of Europe and to retain the independence of their country. All having been arranged, Labouchère crossed from Brielle to Yarmouth and posted to London on his secret mission.