Furthermore, the Count was directed to protest against any measures of coercion, which France and England might decide to adopt against Holland, and to declare that the Tsar would regard all concessions, obtained by such means, as null and void. Lastly, whilst in London, whither he was to proceed when he had completed his task at the Hague, Orloff was "to assist by all means in his power the endeavours which, for the past twelve months, Prince Lieven and Count Matuszewic[207] had been making to prevent a union of the British Cabinet with that of the Palais Royal."[208] During his stay at Berlin, Orloff tried to win over the Prussian government to the Tsar's views upon the Belgian question. But his attempts were unsuccessful. Ancillon, the chief minister, was greatly alarmed at the disturbance of the European Concert to which he feared the Russian policy must lead. Were Austria, Prussia and Russia to make their ratification of the separation treaty depend upon the acceptation of its conditions by the King of the Netherlands, the Powers must necessarily fall into two opposing groups: France and Great Britain on the one side, and the three Northern Courts on the other. Rather than help to create so perilous a situation, Prussia would, with much regret be obliged to "_aller en avant_ _et de ratifier_." Ancillon seems to have succeeded in extracting from Orloff a promise that he would for the present, at least, refrain from communicating the secret clauses of his instructions to the King of the Netherlands, and to have directed the Prussian minister at St. Petersburg to endeavour to persuade Nicholas to cancel them. Metternich, reported Lamb, regarded the matter in the same light as Ancillon, and was resolved to assimilate his policy to that of the Court of Berlin. It was presumably for the purpose of thwarting the Russian plan that a copy of Orloff's secret instructions was placed in the hands of the British ambassador.[209]