Making peace between Britain and France after the French Revolution was a task of difficulty and great complexity. Neither side was willing to abandon its war aims; both sides seized on momentary successes to derail any negotiations which were under way. The Peace Treaty which was finally concluded at Amiens in March 1802 was the result of a full year of negotiations, and they had also been preceded by intermittent discussions spread over the previous five years. Furthermore, the resulting treaty ensured peace for no more than fourteen months: even at the time it was often regarded as no more than a truce.

The earliest attempts at negotiation had begun in 1796, but had collapsed after long talks when the French Directory next year perceived the straits to which Britain had been reduced: defeated on land, with an apparently insurrectionary population, a run on the Bank of England, and a mutinous fleet, it seemed that Britain was about to go along the same revolutionary way as France. The British recovery during the next year, by way of the defeat of a great Irish rebellion and naval victories at Cape St Vincent and Camperdown, and off the coast of Egypt, demonstrated that the British governmental system was, after all, very resilient. By contrast, the French government of the Directory proved to be as rickety and unstable as it had thought the British system had become, and its collapse was constantly hoped for by its enemies. And in September the next coup came, by which a vehemently republican group seized power; peace with Britain was less interesting to them than it had been to their less committed predecessors. The re-entry of Austria and Russia into the war, and the victories the alliance gained in 1799 in Italy and Switzerland, gave support to the British and encouraged the notion of French collapse.

But the overall French system, if not the actual Directory, proved to be resilient as well. A British invasion of Holland was repulsed, the Austrian and Russian armies in Italy and Switzerland were either defeated or blocked, and disputes developed between them. Then in October 1799 the commander of the French army in Egypt returned to France, having deserted his command, though his army continued to control his conquest.