GEORGE III.

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Signed document, ratifying the Treaty of London. A royal warrant, signed by George III at the beginning and end, ordering that the Great Seal be applied to the Treaty of London, the preliminary peace treaty to mark the cessation of hostilities between Britain and France, while negotiations continued towards the Treaty of Amiens.The document is countersigned on the second page by the foreign secretary Charles Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury. It orders the Great Seal to be affixed "to an Instrument... containing our Ratification of the preliminary Articles of Peace and Friendship concluded between us and the French Republick, and signed at London".The Treaty of London was signed on 1 October 1801; this warrant applies the Great Seal on 9 October to ratify it. King George proclaimed the cessation of hostilities on 12 October. The Treaty of London paved the way for the Treaty of Amiens, signed on 25 March 1802. Amiens created a year of peace, the only such period between 1793 and 1814. The Treaty of Amiens is better known than the preliminary Treaty of London, but most of the provisions of Amiens were established by London, including the restoration to France of colonies occupied by the British, the French evacuation of Egypt, and the restoration of Malta to the order of St John of Jerusalem.

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