CHAPTER X.

MR. PEEL, AS SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME
DEPARTMENT.

LORD LIVERPOOL, at the close of 1821, felt that his cabinet required additional strength. Great distress was felt in the agricultural districts; numerous meetings were held by the landed proprietors and farmers, deploring their condition, and soliciting a remedy; the inconveniencies of a return to a metallic currency began to press heavily on men encumbered with debts and mortgages; and there was far from being a perfect accordance between the ministers, on many important questions of public policy. The premier, therefore, sought a coalition with Lord Grenville's followers: they were, indeed, few in number, and their leader was too old and infirm to take any active part in public life; but they had the reputation of being men of business; on all subjects but Catholic emancipation, their opinions were nearer to those of the ministry, than to the sentiments of the chief leaders of the Whig opposition; and, finally, they were not reluctant to taste the sweets of office. The bargain was soon struck the Marquis of Buckingham was created a duke, Mr. C. Wynne was appointed to the Board of Control, and Mr. R. Wynne became Envoy to the Swiss Cantons. The coalition was hardly less odious to the Eldon section of the cabinet, which the Grenvilles had joined, than to the Whigs they had abandoned. We find Lord Eldon retailing, with great glee, some of the witticisms which the Whigs vented on the deserters. Thus he writes to Lady F. G. Bankes: "Lord Holland says, all arti

cles are now to be had at low prices, except Grenvilles. Lord Erskine, alluding to Charles Wynne's voice, says, ministers are hard run, but they still have a squeak for it."

A still more important change was made in the government of Ireland: the Marquis of Wellesley, an old and steady supporter of the Catholic claims, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant; and Plunkett, who had so recently carried a measure of emancipation triumphantly through the House of Commons, was appointed Attorney-General, in the room of Saurin, the vehement and rather bigoted advocate of Protestant ascendancy. Under these new auspices, it was supposed that every ebullition of the rancorous spirit which exulted in the depression of the Catholics, would be discouraged the fanatic zeal of the Orange party would be repressed-the affections of the Catholics would be conciliated; and, from the vigorous measures which the energy of Lord Wellesley's character would lead him to adopt, coupled with his freedom from antiCatholic prejudices, his administration, it was hoped, would prove an epoch, from which Ireland might date an era of internal union and tranquillity.

More false reasoning than that by which such expectations were supported, never entered into the mind of a statesman. Had it been the intention of the cabinet to confer political power on the Catholics, they could not have found persons more eminently qualified to carry such policy into effect; but they were resolved to maintain their system of exclusion, and yet to entrust the administration of the system to men who openly condemned it, as equally impolitic and unjust. The Protestants could not be prevented from boasting of an ascendency, which they held in defiance of their rulers; and when the supreme power discouraged their ebullitions of triumph, they were only induced to assert their superiority more loudly, and in a manner more galling to those beneath them. The Catholics, already galled by the deception which the

king had practised on them, or, rather, which their own egregious folly, at the time of the royal visit, had led them to practise upon themselves, were silent and sullen. The advances of the vice-regal court were received with apathy, if not suspicion; they had a striking proof of the hollowness of the delusion in which they had indulged, when a committee, which had been appointed to arrange a grand reconciliationdinner, to commemorate the first anniversary of the king's visit, were compelled to relinquish publicly their trust, from the impossibility, which they experienced, of carrying it into effect.

Another change which took place, was the retirement of Lord Sidmouth from office: he retained his seat in the cabinet, but was succeeded by Mr. Peel, as Secretary of State for the Home Department. Though the new secretary seemed to possess the same political predilections, sympathies, and principles, as his predecessor, those who looked more narrowly into the characters of the two men, felt assured that the change of persons pointed to an amelioration, if not an entire change of system. Lord Sidmouth was a dull, heavy plodder: he won the favour of George III., by his adoption of that monarch's irrational prejudices, and was called to preside over the cabinet when Pitt resigned in consequence of his inability to fulfil the promises made at the Union. The peace of Amiens was the great work of his administration; and he undid this himself, by rushing into a war, to escape the popular clamour raised against his blundering negociations. When turned out by Pitt, he discovered. that he was not qualified to be a leader; and, when next summoned to power, he selected the place of Home Secretary, as that which had its duties most strictly defined by official routine. Punishment was his only instrument for preserving the peace. Canning had given him the nickname of "the doctor;" and he established his claim to it, by occasionally