The achievement of Belgian independence was the first and almost greatest success of the new Foreign Secretary. When the powers at Vienna, in 1815, were rearranging the map of Europe they had joined Belgium with Holland as the kingdom of the Netherlands, with the idea of forestalling any further advance of France in that quarter. The union was unnatural. Race, language, and religion were opposed to it, and in 1830, the Belgians revolted. A congress of the powers met in London to labor for a peaceful solution. Between the claims of Holland and the aggressive policy of France, a rupture was with difficulty avoided. But eventually, by tact and firmness, Palmerston had his way, and Belgium became an independent state, without precipitating a general European war. The formation of the Quadruple Alliance was the next incident in this vigorous foreign policy. Portugal and Spain were plunged in civil wars, the pretenders, Don Miguel and Don Carlos, attempting to wrest the scepter from the hands of the constitutional queens. Austria, preparing to interfere in behalf of despotism, was met, in 1834, by the announcement that a treaty of alliance had been signed by the four powers-- England, France, Spain, and Portugal. Though it remained in force but a short time it served its purpose. The Eastern Question next took on threatening form. Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, rose against the Turkish Sultan, and his son, Ibrahim, invaded Syria and threatened Constantinople itself. The Turkish empire seemed about to break in two, France supporting the Pasha, and so gaining a foothold in Egypt, and Russia befriending the Porte, and advancing her frontier to the Bosphorus. Such a consummation would have interposed two hostile powers between England and her Indian empire. In July, 1840, Palmerston completed the Quadrilateral Alliance, by which England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia agreed to restore peace in the Porte's dominions. This bold stroke, backed by England's warlike attitude, and Palmerston's characteristic threat that "Mehemet Ali will just be chucked into the Nile" took the spirit out of the French government. Mehemet Ali was left to make the best terms he could with the Quadrilateral, and the crisis was at an end. This was in July, 1841. The next month the Whig ministry fell, and Sir Robert Peel returned to power. Palmerston went out of office with flying colors. "He had created Belgium, saved Portugal and Spain from Absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia, and the highway to India from France." It is true that the picture had another side, and that the very brilliancy of his moves, the cleverness with which he played the game of diplomacy, and his recklessness of the interests of foreign courts left feelings of bitterness and defeat in the hearts of many European and American statesmen. His enemies called him a bully, and denounced his methods as "high handed," but his countrymen were satisfied.