ambition, and to set before him models of Parliamentary eloquence. Grattan was there, as were Canning, Brougham, Palmerston, and Castlereagh. Nor must we forget such men as Windham, Tierney, Sir Samuel Romilly, Wilberforce, and Spencer Perceval, the head of the government and leader of the House of Commons. If the future statesman was for. tunate in finding such men in public life to excite him to the use of all his powers, he was scarcely less so in regard to the time of entering Parliament. His party was in power, and with the prospect of a long continuance in office. Yet the position of the Tories was by no means such as to leave the supporters of the government idle. They were waging war upon the Continent with a powerful enemy; the Walcheren expedition had miserably failed, and was to be defended in Parliament; and the relations of Great Britain with this country were in an embittered and dangerous state.

home there was a strong opposition, particularly in the city of London, which was soon after greatly exasperated by the imprisonment of Sir Francis Burdett; and already the king was again showing indications of the approach of that malady from which he never afterwards recovered. In Ireland, O'Connell was agitating for Catholic Emancipation, and talking about a repeal of the Union. Everywhere the fruits of that great struggle which had drawn so much vitality from the French Revolution were manifest in the restless state of the public mind, kept from frequent outbreaks only by the strong arm of government.

Upon entering Parliament, Peel did not push himself forward by frequent and elaborate orations. His first remarks were merely brief statements, or explanations of questions about which he could furnish the House some information. His first set speech was delivered at the opening of Parliament in January, 1810, on seconding the address. This was followed, the next year, by a defence of the Duke of Wellington as to the policy pursued by him in the Peninsular war. Though these speeches are in no way remarkable, they found favor in the eyes of Tories like Lord Eldon and Mr. Perceval, to whose principles the new aspirant for political fame was then entirely committed. He was appointed Under Secretary

for the Colonies, and was regarded as likely to succeed to the leadership of the High Church and Tory party, whose cause he had unmistakably espoused. Nor were his prospects of speedy and rapid advancement diminished by the reconstruction of the ministry after the assassination of Mr. Perceval, in 1812. Lord Liverpool, the new prime minister, was always anxious to strengthen his party by attaching to it the rising young men in the House of Commons, and soon after his accession he appointed Peel Chief Secretary for Ireland. This office he held for six years, during a period when Irish affairs engaged much of the attention of Parliament, and afforded frequent opportunities for attacks upon the ministry. Every speech which Peel delivered during this period, with only two or three unimportant exceptions, relates to some Irish question, or is in opposition to the claims of the Roman Catholics. Thus early and constantly were his opposition to Catholic Emancipation, and his attention to the details of his official duties, exhibited. The principles avowed in these debates were greatly modified in subsequent years; but his business habits he retained through life.

Whilst he held the Irish Secretaryship, and in consequence of the stringency of the measures he advocated, he was constantly pursued with all that bitterness of invective, vituperation, and ridicule, of which Irish patriots are such consummate masters. Stung by the sarcasms levelled at him by O'Connell, he lost that calm and imperturbable temper which a statesman ought to preserve when assailed by personal obloquy, and challenged the Agitator. The circumstances became known, and O'Connell was arrested and bound over to keep the peace towards all his Majesty's subjects in Ireland. The affair, however, did not end here. Peel and his second went over to England, and then proceeded to the Continent to arrange a hostile meeting beyond the British dominions. O'Connell followed them to London, where he was again arrested, and was brought before Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough, who placed him under new bonds. The duel was thus happily prevented. But from this period dates that bitter personal enmity, far more rancorous than mere party animosity, with which O'Connell regarded Peel

through the rest of his life. From that time he was a thorn in the side of the English statesman; and under his influence Ireland was always the chief difficulty with which Peel had to contend as a minister. "I believe," said Mr. Macaulay, in the great debate in 1840, upon a motion of want of confidence in the Melbourne ministry, "that if, with the best and purest intentions, the right honorable baronet were to undertake the government of this country, he would find that it was very easy to lose the confidence of the party which raised him to power, but very difficult to gain that which the present government happily possesses, the confidence of the people of Ireland." The remark was as true as it was severe. Peel never possessed the confidence of Ireland.

In 1818 he resigned the Irish Secretaryship; but he did not withdraw his attention from public affairs because he was relieved from official duties. He was still busy and energetic; and he was soon appointed to the important post of Chairman of the Bullion Committee, which had been raised on motion of the government to inquire into the state of the Bank of England. Great care had been taken in the formation of the committee to secure a preponderance of ministerial members. Of the twenty-one selected from the House of Commons, it was declared in debate that fourteen were supporters of the existing government. Probably as large a proportion entered upon the inquiry with opinions upon the general subject similar to those which Mr. Peel admitted that he then held, and opposed to those which he afterwards embodied in his famous Report. The result of his thorough investigation of the subject was an entire and radical change of his views in regard to it. Upon the general question of the resumption of specie payments there was great unanimity in Parliament and throughout the country. But in reference to the time and manner in which this object should be effected, there was a great divergence of opinion. By many persons, particularly the merchants of Bristol and London and the Bank Directors, an immediate resumption was strongly deprecated. On the other hand, the political economists generally favored such a Early in April a preliminary Report was presented,

course.

authorizing a continuance of the Bank Restriction Act for a limited period. In the mean time Mr. Peel became convinced of the importance of an early resumption. Though he did not originate the government plan, it was understood that he arranged its details and drew up the Report recommending it.

This Report was finally adopted in committee, and was presented to Parliament on the 24th of May. On the evening of that day the elder Peel rose in his place to present a remonstrance against the proposed measure from the London merchants. "To-night," he said, "I shall have to oppose a very near and dear relation." And he went on to speak of his regard for the memory of Mr. Pitt, adding: "I well remember, when the near and dear relation to whom I have alluded was a child, I observed to some friends, that the man who discharged his duty to his country in the manner in which Mr. Pitt had was most to be admired, and most to be imitated; and I thought at that moment, if my own life and that of my dear relation were spared, I would one day present him to his country, to follow in the same path." It must, indeed, have been a grievous disappointment to the old man, when the son, upon whose political orthodoxy he had set his fondest hopes, thus fell away from the financial policy of the guide, philosopher, and friend, whose praises, as "the heaven-born Chancellor of the Exchequer," the Tories had so often shouted forth at the Carlton Club. But Mr. Peel was always ready to forsake the traditional policy of his party, whenever in his judgment the exigencies of the country demanded such a course. The time he thought had now come for a change, and he met the issue with a modest firmness which challenges our respect and admiration.

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Many difficulties," he said, "have presented themselves to me in discussing this question. Among them is one which it pains me to observe; and that is the necessity I feel of opposing myself to an authority to which I have always bowed, and I hope always shall bow with deference. But here I have a great public duty imposed on me, and from that duty I may not shrink, whatever may be my private feelings."

This speech, by far the ablest that Peel had yet delivered, VOL. LXXXV. — NO. 177.

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exerted a great influence, and at the close of the debate the resolutions introduced by him were carried without a division. The wisdom of the course adopted in the settlement of this question has often been impugned; and Peel was repeatedly assailed for the part which he took in it. But without entering upon a discussion that would carry us far beyond the proper limits of this article, it is sufficient for our present purpose to say, that every candid person who carefully examines the subject must acquit Peel from the charge of acting from interested motives.

For the next two or three years he took a much less active part in public affairs than at any other period of his life. In 1820 he did not speak once in Parliament. In June of that year he was married. His wife was a daughter of General Floyd, a distinguished officer in the English army. During a great part of this period of comparative inactivity in Peel's life, the public mind was kept in a disturbed and harassed state by a series of memorable events, showing the temper of the men who then ruled England. In the summer of 1819 occurred the great reform meeting at Manchester, and the dispersion of the reformers by the magistrates under circumstances of cruelty and bloodshed which gave to it the name of the Battle of Peterloo, or the Manchester Massacre. Then came the death of George III. in January, 1820, followed in a few months by the ridiculous farce of the Cato Street Conspiracy, and all the disgusting details of the queen's trial. From any immediate connection with the measures adopted by the ministers as these various questions came up, Peel was relieved, happily, indeed, for his own reputation. But in February, 1821, he spoke in the House of Commons in opposition to the Marquis of Tavistock's motion in censure of the course pursued by the ministers in the proceedings against the queen. That Mr. Peel approved of the ministerial policy upon this and the other questions of the day, was likewise shown by his being selected to succeed Lord Sidmouth as Secretary of the Home Department, upon the retirement of that venerable nobleman in 1822, and by his adoption of a similar policy in his own early measures as Secretary.