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 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, intoxic