Castlereagh found himself in an awkward position. He took the same view as Wellington, Alexander and Metternich. But British public opinion, which had condemned the first Treaty of Paris as too lenient, now called for harsher measures, and the British press became as strident as the German in its demands for revenge and compensation. The Prince Regent caught the mood, and so did Liverpool. ‘The prevailing idea in this country is, that we are fairly entitled to avail ourselves of the present moment to take back from France the principal conquests of Louis XIV,’
