International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 7, August 12, 1850. Various
of temper, his almost exhaustless resources of information, his vigorous and comprehensive intellect appear to create such astonishment or draw forth such unbounded admiration as in the early part of 1835. But, after a well-fought contest he retired once more into the opposition till the close of the second Melbourne Administration in 1841. It was in April, 1835, that Lord Melbourne was restored to power, but the continued enjoyment of office did not much promote the political interests of his party, and from various causes the power of the whigs began to decline. The commencement of a new reign gave them some popularity, but in the new House of Commons, elected in consequence of that event, the conservative party were evidently gaining strength; still, after the failure of 1834-5, it was no easy task to dislodge an existing ministry, and at the same time to be prepared with a cabinet and a party competent to succeed them. Sir Robert Peel, therefore, with characteristic caution, "bided his time", conducting the business of opposition throughout the whole of this period with an ability and success of which history affords few examples. He had accepted the Reform Bill as the established law of England, and as the system upon which the country was thenceforward to be governed. He was willing to carry it out in its true spirit, but he would proceed no further. He marshaled his opposition upon the principle of resistance to any further organic changes, and he enlisted the majority of the peers and nearly the whole of the country gentlemen of England in support of the great principle of protection to British industry. The little maneuvres and small political intrigues of the period are almost forgotten, and the remembrance of them is scarcely worthy of revival. It may, however, be mentioned, that in 1839 ministers, being left in a minority, resigned, and Sir Robert Peel, when sent for by the Queen, demanded that certain ladies in the household of her majesty,—the near relatives of eminent whig politicians,—should be removed from the personal service of the sovereign. As this was refused, he abandoned for the time any attempt to form a government, and his opponents remained in office till September, 1841. It was then Sir Robert Peel became the first lord of the treasury, and the Duke of Wellington, without office, accepted a seat in the cabinet, taking the management of the House of Lords. His ministry was formed on protectionist principles, but the close of its career was marked by the adoption of free trade doctrines differing in the widest and most liberal sense. Sir Robert Peel's sense of public duty impelled him once more to incur the odium and obliquy which attended a fundamental change of policy, and a repudiation of the political partizans by whose ardent support a minister may have attained office and authority. It was his fate to encounter more than any man ever did, that hostility which such conduct, however necessary, never fails to produce. This great change in our commercial policy, however unavoidable, must be regarded as the proximate cause of his final expulsion from office in July, 1846. His administration, however, had been signalized by several measures of great political importance. Among the earliest and most prominent of these were his financial plans, the striking feature of which was an income-tax; greatly extolled for the exemption it afforded from other burdens pressing more severely on industry, but loudly condemned for its irregular and unequal operation, a vice which has since rendered its contemplated increase impossible.
Of the ministerial life of Sir Robert Peel little more remains to be related except that which properly belongs rather to the history of the country than to his individual biography. But it would be unjust to the memory of one of the most sagacious statesman that England ever produced to deny that his latest renunciation of political principles required but two short years to attest the vital necessity of that unqualified surrender. If the corn laws had been in existence at the period when the political system of the continent was shaken to its centre and dynasties crumbled into dust, a question would have been left in the hands of the democratic party of England, the force of which neither skill nor influence could then have evaded. Instead of broken friendships, shattered reputations for consistency, or diminished rents, the whole realm of England might have borne a fearful share in that storm of wreck and revolution which had its crisis in the 10th of April, 1848.
In the course of his long and eventful life many honors were conferred upon Sir Robert Peel. Wherever he went, and almost at all times, he attracted universal attention, and was always received with the highest consideration. At the close of 1836 the University of Glasgow elected him Lord Rector, and the conservatives of that city, in January, 1837, invited him to a banquet at which three thousand gentlemen assembled to do honor to their great political chief. But this was only one among many occasions on which he was "the great guest." Perhaps the most remarkable of these banquets was that given to him in 1835 at Merchant Tailors' Hall by three hundred members of the House of Commons. Many other circumstances might be related to illustrate the high position which Sir Robert Peel occupied. Anecdotes innumerable might be recorded to show the extraordinary influence in Parliament which made him "the great commoner" of the age; for Sir Robert Peel was not only a skillful and adroit debater, but by many degrees the most able and one of the most eloquent men in either house of parliament. Nothing could be more stately or imposing than the long array of sounding periods in which he expounded his doctrines, assailed his political adversaries, or vindicated his own policy. But when the whole land laments his loss, when England mourns the untimely fate of one of her noblest sons, the task of critical disquisition upon literary attainments or public oratory possesses little attraction. It may be left for calmer moments, and a more distant time, to investigate with unforgiving justice the sources of his errors, or to estimate the precise value of services which the public is now disposed to regard with no other feelings than those of unmingled gratitude.
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