Long Wellesley has given up his daughter and has been discharged from arrest. I met the Solicitor-General yesterday, who told me this, and said that Brougham had been in the midst of his blustering terribly nervous about it. This was clear, for both he and Wellesley were waiting for the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, though Brougham affected to hold it cheap, and talked very big of what he should do and should have done had it been unfavourable to his authority. The fact is that Long Wellesley was contumacious, but after a short confinement he knocked under and yielded to the Chancellor on all points, and was released from durance.
We had a meeting on the Coronation business yesterday morning, and took into consideration the estimates. That from the Chamberlain’s Office was 70,000ℓ. and upwards, which was referred to a sub-committee to dissect and report upon.
August 5th, 1831
Yesterday morning arrived the news of Casimir Périer’s resignation in consequence of the division in the Chamber of Deputies on the election of President. He had very unnecessarily committed himself by declaring he would resign if Lafitte was elected, and though the other candidate (M. Girod de l’Ain) was chosen, as it was, only by a majority of five, he considered this tantamount to a defeat, and accordingly went out of office.[2] It was supposed, but not quite certain, that Molé would be First Minister, but without much chance of being able to keep that post.
[2] [M. Casimir Périer did not retire from office on this occasion, though he had momentarily resigned it. He remained in power till his death which took place from cholera in the following year.]
At the same time comes intelligence that the King of Holland has marched into Belgium at three points with three corps under the Prince of Orange, Prince Frederick, and the Prince of Nassau. This, however, was premature, for it turns out that the Prince of Orange in a proclamation to his army declares that the armistice was to end last night at half-past nine, and that he marches ‘to secure equitable terms of separation,’ not therefore for the purpose of reconquest. I saw Lord Grey in the morning in a state of great consternation, the more particularly as he told me a Dutch Plenipotentiary had arrived the day before with full powers to treat, and that he had not in his intercourse with him and with Palmerston uttered one word of the King of Holland’s intentions. In the evening I had a long conversation with Matuscewitz. He says that it is impossible to foresee the end of all this, but that the most probable event is a general war. Coming at the moment of a change in the French Ministry, nobody can guess what the French may do, and the Conferences are useless, because any resolution they may make may probably be totally inapplicable to the state of things produced by events hastening on elsewhere. The King of Holland has all along very justly complained of the proceedings of the Allies towards him, which they justify by necessity (‘the tyrant’s plea’) and to which he has been obliged sulkily to submit, though always protesting and never acquiescing, except in an armistice to which he agreed. Meantime the Allies went on negotiating, but without making much progress, and the Dutchman borrowed money and put his army on a respectable footing. It is remarkable that as long as he held out that he sought the reunion he could get no money at all, but no sooner did he renounce the idea of reunion, and propose to make war for objects more immediately national to the Dutch, than he got a loan filled (in two days) to the amount of about a million sterling. When the proposition was made to Leopold, though no arrangement was actually agreed upon, there was a general understanding that the King of Holland would consent to the separation of the two States, and that the Belgians should resign their claims to Limbourg and Luxembourg, and after Lord Ponsonby’s letter which made so much noise, Falck’s HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. protestation, and Ponsonby’s recall this seemed to be clearly established. When Leopold received the offer of the Crown, he only consented to take it upon an understanding that the Belgians would agree to the terms prescribed by the Allies; but before the whole thing was settled he took fright and began to repent, and it was with some difficulty he was at last persuaded to go by the Belgian deputies with assurances that these terms would be complied with. Go, however, he did, and that unaccompanied by any person of weight or consequence from this country. Matuscewitz told me that he went on his knees to Palmerston to send somebody with him who would prevent his getting into scrapes, and that Talleyrand and Falck, by far the best heads among them, had both predicted that Leopold would speedily commit some folly the consequences of which might be irreparable.[3] Our Government, however, paid no attention to these remonstrances, and he was suffered to go alone. Accordingly he had no sooner arrived than, intoxicated with the applause he received, he forgot all that had occurred here and all the resolutions of the Allies, and flourished off speeches in direct contradiction to them, and announced his determination to comprehend the disputed provinces in his new kingdom. It is no wonder that this excited the indignation of the King of Holland, but it is unfortunate that he could not be patient a little longer. Notwithstanding his march, however, his Plenipotentiary here has full power to treat of all the disputed points, and is authorised to put a stop to hostilities at any moment when he can see the prospect of satisfaction; it is, however, believed here (though at present not on any sufficient grounds) that Prussia secretly supports the King of Holland. The danger is that France may without any further communication with her Allies consider the aggression of the Dutch as a justification of a corresponding movement on her part, and should this happen the Prussians would no longer deem themselves bound by the common obligations which united all the conferring and mediating Powers, and a general war would infallibly ensue. Nor is it unlikely that the French Ministry, beset as they are with difficulties, and holding their offices de die in diem, may think a war the best expedient for occupying the nation and bringing all the restless spirits and unquiet humours into one focus. I have long been of opinion that such mighty armaments and such a nervous state of things cannot end without a good deal of blood-letting. [The Prussians did not support the Dutch, the French did march, and war did not ensue.—August 28th.]
[3] [This account of Leopold’s arrival in Belgium is hardly fair, and forms an amusing contrast to Baron Stockmar’s narrative of the same occurrence in his ‘Memoirs,’ p. 180. Unquestionably Leopold showed far more foresight, judgment, and resolution than Mr. Greville gave him credit for. He was not accompanied by ‘any person of weight or consequence’ from this country, because that would have given him the air of a puppet and a British nominee. But Stockmar was with him. The King entered Brussels on the 21st of July, and was well received. On the 4th of August the Dutch broke the truce and invaded Belgium. It was impossible to provide against so sudden a movement, and the Army of the Scheldt was beaten at Louvain on the 12th of August. The King then claimed the intervention of France and England in defence of the neutrality and independence of Belgium, which had been guaranteed to him by the treaty of the eighteen articles under which he had accepted the Crown. But the passage in the text is curious, because it shows how little confidence was felt at that time in a prince who turned out to be one of the ablest rulers and politicians of his time.]
At night.—Lord Grey was attacked by Aberdeen to-night on his foreign policy, and particularly about Portugal, and he is said to have made a splendid speech. Sir Henry Seton arrived from Liverpool to announce what is going on, and he is bent on fighting at present. Abercromby, who is come likewise, reports that he has 50,000 or 60,000 men.
August 9th, 1831
On Saturday morning we were saluted with intelligence that on the French King’s hearing of the Dutch invasion he ordered Marshal Gérard, with 50,000 men, to march into Belgium; and great was the alarm here: the funds fell and everybody was prepared for immediate war. In the afternoon I called upon Lord Grey at East Sheen (in my way to Monk’s Grove, where I was going) to say something to him about the coronation, and found him with a more cheerful countenance than I expected. He did not appear alarmed at what the French had done, THE QUEEN’S CROWN. and very well satisfied with the manner of their doing it, marching only in virtue of their guarantee and proclaiming their own neutrality and the Belgian independence, and the King had previously received the Belgian Minister. I told him I thought Leopold’s folly had been the cause of it, and that his speeches about Luxembourg had given the Dutch King a pretext. He said, not at all, and that the King of Holland would have done this under any circumstances, which I took leave to doubt, though I did not think it necessary to say so.[4]