England bound herself by the preliminaries of London to restore all her colonial conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon, and to withdraw from Malta and the other Mediterranean ports which she had seized. France was to restore Egypt to the Porte, to withdraw her troops from Naples, and to guarantee the integrity of Portugal, which the First Consul had intended to incorporate with Spain for his further purposes. A week later a secret treaty between France and Russia was signed: the two powers were to settle the affairs of Germany and Italy in concert. The idea of perpetual intervention in the German empire by France originated with Richelieu; no Russian monarch since the time of Peter the Great could feel his dignity secure without the same privilege. Such an agreement was, therefore, a final seal to France's new alliance. With Turkey likewise the old relations of amity were reëstablished by a new treaty. Bavaria was appeased by promises. There would have been one other war-cloud on the distant horizon had it not wisely been dispelled in time. The United States had suffered much from the pretensions of the Directory to control its commerce in the French interest, on the plea of gratitude. The declaration of neutrality made by Washington in 1793 was ill received in Paris; the treaty of commerce concluded with England in the following year was regarded by the French government as a breach of neutrality, and the Directory suspended diplomatic relations. Their insolent agents in the United States had so embroiled the question of the relations of that nation with the two countries respectively that a rupture with France was threatened, especially when Talleyrand's unblushing effrontery in demanding enormous bribes from the American envoys was made public. Great as their obligations were, the United States had no intention of becoming tributary to France. The recognition by England of their neutrality had given them the whole colonial trade of France, Holland, and Spain. Their principle was virtually that of the armed neutrality of 1780: that neutral ships made neutral goods, "free ships, free goods." For this they were ready to fight. The First Consul had recognized the value for his own schemes of a great neutral maritime state, and on September thirty, 1800, had concluded a convention regulating commerce which for the time removed all sources of friction between his government and that at Washington. It was reciprocally agreed that the flag protects the goods, and that merchantmen under convoy may not be searched. CHAPTER XIX THE REORGANIZATION OF FRANCE[20]