conclusion that without Peel's aid in office there was no prospect
of success. Under that pressure Peel consented to remain, and
all the cabinet approved. The consent of the king, which could
scarcely have been obtained except by the duke and Peel, was
extorted, withdrawn (the ministers being out for a few hours),
and again extorted, and on the 5th of March 1829 Peel proposed
Roman Catholic emancipation in a speech of more than four
hours. The apostate was overwhelmed with obloquy. Having
been elected for the university of Oxford as a leading opponent
of the Roman Catholics, he had thought it right to resign his
seat on being converted to emancipation. His friends put him
again in nomination, but he was defeated by Sir R. H. Inglis
He took refuge in the close borough of Westbury, whence he
afterwards removed to Tamworth, for which he sat till his death.
Catholic emancipation was forced on Peel by circumstances,
but it was mainly owing to him that the measure was complete,
and based upon equality of civil rights. This great concession,
however, did not save the Tory government. The French
Revolution of July 1830 gave fresh strength to the movement
against them, though, schooled by the past, they promptly
recognized King Louis Philippe. The parliamentary reform
movement was joined by some of their offended Protestant
supporters. The duke of Wellington committed them fatally
against all reform, and the elections went against them on the
demise of the Crown; they were beaten on Sir H. Parnell's
motion for a committee on the civil list, and Wellington took the
opportunity to resign rather than deal with reform.
While in office, Peel succeeded to the baronetcy, Drayton Manor and a great estate by the death of his father (May 3, 1830). The old man had lived to see his fondest hopes fulfilled in the greatness of his son; but he had also lived to see that a father must not expect to fix his son's opinions—above all, the opinions of such a son as Sir Robert Peel, and in such an age as that which followed the French Revolution.
Sir Robert Peel's resistance to the Reform Bill won back for him the allegiance of his party. His opposition was resolute but it was temperate, and once only he betrayed the suppressed fire of his temper, in the historical debate of the 22nd of April 1831, when his speech was broken off by the arrival of the king to dissolve the parliament which had thrown out reform. He refused to join the duke of Wellington in the desperate enterprise of forming a Tory government at the height of the storm, when the Grey ministry had gone out on the refusal of the king to promise them an unlimited creation of peers. By this conduct he secured for his party the full benefit of the reaction which he no doubt knew was sure to ensue The general election of 1832, after the passing of the Reform Bill, left him with barely 150 followers in the House of Commons; but this handful rapidly swelled under his management into the great Conservative party. He frankly accepted the Reform Act as irrevocable, taught his party to register instead of despairing, appealed to the intelligence of the middle classes, whose new-born power he appreciated, steadily supported the Whig ministers against the Radicals and O'Connell, and gained every moral advantage which the most dignified and constitutional tactics could afford. To this policy, and to the great parliamentary powers of its author, it was mainly due that, in the course of a few years, the Conservatives were as strong in the reformed parliament as the Tories had been in the unreformed. It is vain to deny the praise of genius to such a leader, though the skill of a pilot who steered for many years over such waters may sometimes have resembled craft. But the duke of Wellington's emphatic eulogy on him was, “Of all the men I ever knew, he had the greatest regard for truth.” The duke might have added that his own question, “How is the king’s government to be carried on in a reformed parliament ?” was mainly solved by the temperate and constitutional policy of Sir Robert Peel, and by his personal influence on the debates and proceedings of the House of Commons during the years which followed the Reform Act.
In 1834, on the dismissal of the Melbourne ministry, power came to Sir Robert Peel before he expected or desired it. He hurried from Rome at the call of the duke of Wellington, whose sagacious modesty yielded him the first place, and became prime minister, holding the two offices of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. He vainly sought to include in his cabinet two recent seceders from the Whigs, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham. A dissolution gave him a great increase of strength in the house, but not enough. He was outvoted on the election of the speaker at the opening of the session of 1835, and, after struggling on for six weeks longer, resigned on the question of appropriating part of the revenues of the Church in Ireland to national education. His time had not yet come; but the capacity, energy and resource he displayed in this short tenure of office raised him immensely in the estimation of the house, his party and the country. Of the great budget of practical reforms which he brought forward, the plan for the commutation of tithes, the ecclesiastical commission, and the plan for settling the question of dissenters' marriages bore fruit. From 1835 to 1840 he pursued the same course of patient and far-sighted opposition. In 1837 the Conservative members of the House of Commons gave their leader a grand banquet at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, where he proclaimed in a great speech the creed and objects of his party. In 1839, the Whigs having resigned on the Jamaica Bill, he was called on to form a government, and submitted names for a cabinet, but resigned the commission owing to the young queen's persistent refusal to part with any Whig ladies of her bedchamber (see Victoria, Queen). In 1840 he was hurried into a premature motion of want of confidence. But in the following year a similar motion was carried by a majority of one, and the Whigs ventured to appeal to the country. The result was a majority of ninety-one against them on a motion of want of confidence in the autumn of 1841, upon which they resigned, and Sir Robert Peel became first lord of the treasury, with a commanding majority in both Houses of Parliament.
The crisis called for a master-hand. The finances were in disorder. For some years there had been a growing deficit, estimated for 1842 at more than two millions, and attempts to supply this by additions to assessed taxes and customs duties had failed. The great financier took till the spring of 1842 to mature his plans. He then boldly supplied the deficit by imposing an income-tax on all incomes above £150 a year. He accompanied this tax with a reform of the tariff, by which prohibitory duties were removed and other duties abated on a vast number of articles of import, especially the raw materials of manufactures and prime articles of food. The increased consumption, as the reformer expected, countervailed the reduction of duty. The income-tax was renewed and the reform of the tariff carried still farther on the same principle in 1845. The result was, in place of a deficit of upwards of two millions, a surplus of five millions in 1845, and the removal of seven millions and a half of taxes up to 1847, not only without loss, but with gain to the ordinary revenue of the country. The prosperous state of the finances and of public affairs also permitted a reduction of the interest on a portion of the national debt, giving a yearly saving at once of £625,000, and ultimately of a million and a quarter to the public. In 1844 another great financial measure, the Bank Charter Act, was passed and, though severely controverted and thrice suspended at a desperate crisis, has ever since regulated the currency of the country. In Ireland O’Connell's agitation for the repeal of the Union had now assumed threatening proportions, and verged upon rebellion. The great agitator was prosecuted, with his chief adherents, for conspiracy and sedition; and, though the conviction was quashed for informality, repeal was quelled in its chief. At the same time a healing hand was extended to Ireland. The Charitable Bequests Act gave Roman Catholics a share in the administration of charities and legal power to endow their own religion. The allowance to Maynooth was largely increased, notwithstanding violent Protestant opposition. Three queen's colleges, for the higher education of all the youth of Ireland, without distinction of religion, were founded, notwithstanding violent opposition, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. The principle of toleration once accepted, was thoroughly carried out. The last remnants of the penal laws
