In London the application of coercion of so vigorous a nature was far from evoking the universal applause which it called forth in Paris. Among the general public the entry of Marshal Gérard's army into Belgium was regarded with suspicion, and a meeting of London merchants was held, and a petition was forwarded to the King, praying that hostile measures might not be taken against the Dutch. The Tories openly declared that they placed all their hopes in General Chassé, the commandant of the citadel of Antwerp. If only that gallant officer could contrive to repel the French, the Grey Cabinet, they conceived, might be forced to resign. Possibly there were sanguine members of the party who fancied that the prowess of a Dutch general might pave the way to the repeal of the Reform Act. In the meantime all their sympathies went out to a drunken sailor who, from the dock in the police-court, proclaimed the union of the British flag with the tricolour to be a national disgrace.[262] The proposal that Prussia should occupy Venlo and parts of Limburg, and the limitations which the convention of October 22 set upon the scope of the French operations, somewhat reconciled the German Powers to the forcible ejection of the Dutch from Antwerp.[263] Nevertheless, after having in the first instance declared its readiness to take temporary possession of portions of the disputed territory, the Court of Berlin, at the instigation, it was suspected, of the Tsar, declined to entertain the suggestion. Inasmuch as the acquisition of the citadel of Antwerp by the Belgians depended upon the success of the French arms, they could not reasonably be expected to yield up, even to a third party, any territory which they actually occupied, before the operations under Marshal Gérard should have achieved their desired result. Accordingly, in the formal proposal of Talleyrand and Palmerston, which was submitted to Bülow on October 30, it was provided that the Prussian occupation of Venlo and parts of Limburg and Luxemburg should begin, only when the French expedition should have accomplished its object. Ancillon, however, declared that this suggestion was altogether inadmissible. Prussia, it was true, had signified her willingness to hold certain districts of the Low Countries. But she had only consented to take temporary possession of them for the security of her own interests during the French operations against Antwerp. To occupy any portion of Holland, after the withdrawal of Marshal Gérard's army, would amount, in effect, to the application of military pressure to the King of the Netherlands to compel him to accept the conditions of the separation treaty. Such a proceeding would be wholly inconsistent with the policy which the Court of Berlin had invariably pursued, and to which it was resolved to adhere. Prussia, therefore, would content herself with the concentration of an army of observation upon the Meuse, for so long a