The opposition challenged the appropriateness of the payment of money to Russia under an arrangement where the responsibilities for which Russia had contracted for the loan had been fully discharged, so that the occasion for the loan and its payment no longer existed. The House debated whether the payment was sanctioned by the Act of Parliament that had ratified the agreement with Russia. The loan had been made on the condition that Russia would meet the debt that England owed to Holland, and the agreement of the loan was on the condition that it would better provide for the defence and incorporation of the Belgic provinces with Holland. Given the collapse of that arrangement and the independence of the Belgic provinces from Holland, the opposition questioned whether the British government could be under any statutory requirement to continue the payments to Russia. The government survived what was, in effect, a motion of no confidence in its handling of the matter.

See The Times, 27 January 1832.