t the king expected or wished.
Their first step was to impose an armistice; their next to make it clear
that their intervention would be confined to negotiating a settlement on
the basis of separation. A Whig ministry in England had (November 16)
taken the place of that of Wellington; and Lord Palmerston, the new
Foreign Secretary, was well-disposed to Belgium and found himself able
to work in accord with Talleyrand, the French plenipotentiary. Austria
and Russia were too much occupied with their own internal difficulties
to think of supporting the Dutch king by force of arms; and Prussia,
despite the close family connection, did not venture to oppose the
determination of the two western Powers to work for a peaceful
settlement. While they were deliberating, the National Congress had met
at Brussels, and important decisions had been taken. By overwhelming
majorities (November 18) Belgium was declared to be an independent
State; and four days later, after vigorous debates, the Congress (by 174
votes to 13) resolved that the new State should be a constitutional
monarchy and (by 161 votes to 28) that the house of Orange-Nassau be for
ever excluded from the throne. A committee was appointed to draw up a
constitution.

William had appealed to the Powers to maintain the Treaties of Paris and
Vienna and to support him in what he regarded, on the basis of those
treaties, as his undoubted rights; and it was with indignation that he
saw the Conference decline to admit his envoy, Falck, except as a
witness and on precisely the same terms as the representatives of the
Brussels Congress. On December 20 a protocol was issued by the Powers
which defined their attitude. They accepted the principle of separation
and independence, subject to arrangements being made for assuring
European peace. The Conference, however, declared that such arrangements
would not affect the rights of King William and of the German
Confederation in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. This part of the protocol
was as objectionable to the Belgians as the former part was to the
Dutch king. The London Plenipotentiaries had in fact no choice, for they
were bound by the unfortunate clauses of the treaties of 1815, which, to
gratify Prussian ambition for cis-Rhenan territory, converted this
ancient Belgian province into a German state. This ill-advised step was
now to be the chief obstacle to a settlement in 1831. The mere fact that
William had throughout the period of un