XLI. 1841. own views regarding it. Without the advantages of CHAP. ancient descent or aristocratic connections, and the son of one who had been the architect of his own fortune, he was naturally inclined to regard with favour that mercantile interest to which his greatness had been owing. It would be going too far to assert, as Gibbon did of Mr Fox, that "his inmost soul was tinged with democracy;" for no man was inspired from principle with a more profound respect for the civil institutions of his country. But this was the conviction of reason, it was not the bent of inclination. It is certain that, from early youth, he was inclined to Liberal opinions, and that it was a knowledge of that which induced his father, who was a stanch Tory of the old school, to throw him so early into public life, in hopes that, when in harness, he would wax warm in the contest on his own side. 8% This tendency, unavoidable in one situated as he was, was unfortunately greatly increased by his early connection with the rising school of the political economists, whose opinions on the all-important matter of monetary policy had been recorded in the memorable Bullion Report of 1810. The leaders of this school, Mr Horner and Mr Ricardo, obtained on these subjects the entire direction of his mind; and it is to their influence that the parts of his career which otherwise would seem inexplicable are chiefly to be ascribed. For good or for evil, they stamped their impress upon his mind; and his subsequent career bore indelible marks of their influence. "Une anecdote que je tiens de bonne source donnerait lieu de penser qu'il était, depuis longtemps et par nature, placé sur la pente à laquelle il céda, quand de conservateur obstiné il devint ardent reformateur. On dit qu'en 1809, lorsqu'il entra dans la Chambre des Communes, son père, le vieux Sir R. Peel, alla trouver Lord Liverpool, et lui dit: Mon fils est, soyez-en sûr, un jeune homme doué de talens rares, et qui jouera un rôle important. Mais je le connais bien; au fond, ses penchants sont Whigs; si nous ne l'engageons pas promptement dans nos rangs, il nous échappera. Mettez-le dans les affaires; il vous servira bien; mais il faut sans tarder vous emparer de lui.' Lord Liverpool observa le fils, reconnut son mérite, et suivit le conseil du père."—GUIZOT, Sir R. Peel, p. 342. CHAP. 1841. 11. rency. He had been nominated chairman of the Bullion Committee of 1819 by Lord Liverpool, to form a check upon the extreme views of Mr Ricardo and the Economists; His views but he soon was either convinced by their arguments, or on the Cur- fell a prey to their seductions. He disdained lucre for himself or his relations, but he worshipped it with devout devotion for his country. He thought the country never could be in danger when its monetary state was sound, and that that depended entirely on the retention of gold by the Bank of England. He measured the public strength by the number of sovereigns in its vaults, private influence in a great degree by the magnitude of balances with bankers. In gold he saw the only solid and imperishable condensation of wealth, in realised capital the only secure foundation for future progress or accumulation. He never could believe that the nation was other than prosperous if the Bank had fifteen millions' worth of gold in its coffers. He deemed every attempt to create or augment wealth hazardous and delusive which was not based upon the interest of its monied capital, every measure expedient which went to augment the solid metallic treasures of the nation. To that unhappy conviction the most fatal errors of his career may be distinctly traced. He lived in the perpetual dread of the nation being broken down, and public ruin induced, either by the draining away the gold, which would starve industry, or by the issue of assignats to supply their place, which would extinguish capital. The memory of 1825, when the bullion in the Bank was reduced to a million, and public bankruptcy was avoided only by the issue of two millions of old notes; of the dreary years from 1838 to 1842, when suffering met him on every side, and the memory of which, he himself said, "would never be erased from his mind," were perpetually present to his recollection. The cry, "To stop the Duke, go for gold," continually resounded in his ears. When once this key to his political conduct is seized, XLI. 1841. 12. tion thus af political career. it affords a satisfactory explanation of his whole political CHAP. He was truly and sincerely patriotic, and actuated on every occasion by nothing but a regard for what he deemed the public good; but he, nevertheless, acted Explanaon many in direct opposition to it, from the unhappy forded of his delusion under which he laboured in regard to guarding the treasures of the Bank of England. He was courageous, both personally and politically, for himself, but timorous for his country. It is no wonder he was so; for he had placed it on the unstable equilibrium, and any considerable concussion might overturn at once the whole fabric. His practical sagacity led him clearly to see that any serious internal convulsion, and even the most inconsiderable foreign war, would lead to such a run on the Bank as would, in all probability, prove fatal to that establishment, and with it entirely unhinge public credit, and render destitute millions of starving workmen. It was to avert this catastrophe that all his measures were directed. For this it was that he emancipated the Catholics in 1829, to postpone rebellion in Ireland, and surrendered Maine, by the Ashburton capitulation, in 1842, to avoid a rupture with America, and abandoned the Corn Laws, in 1846, to render England the great emporium of corn throughout the world, and thereby prevent the drain which so nearly proved fatal to the Bank in 1839. His monetary bill of 1844 was intended to lay speculation in irons, and so prevent the drain upon the metallic treasures of the nation, which indulgence in it to excess never failed to occasion. That his apprehensions were well founded, the event has decisively proved; the only thing to be wondered at is, that he did not perceive that the danger was entirely of his own creation, by having rendered public credit dependent on the retention of gold, and that the measures he intended to avert were the greatest possible aggravation of the evil. CHAP. 1841. 13. ter in pri vate life. In private life, Sir Robert's character was altogether unexceptionable. Inheriting from his father, the first baronet, who made the fortune, immense wealth, he made His charac- a noble use of it. Simple and unostentatious in his habits, his tastes were refined, and he expended largely in the encouragement of the arts which elevate the mind and purify the taste. A kind and affectionate husband, a liberal father, he never deviated from correctness either in conduct or decorum, and his bitterest political enemies (and no man latterly had more) were unable to find one blot in his escutcheon, so far as domestic relations were concerned. He was by nature afflicted with a most violent temper, and his fits of anger, when a young man, were so violent that he used, when they came on, to shut himself up alone till the dark fit was over. By degrees, however, he obtained the mastery of this infirmity, and this at length so effectually that he passed with the world, at a distance, as a man of a singularly cold and phlegmatic temperament. He had all the contempt for rank, merely as such, which so often accompanies strong intellectual powers; and he showed this, not only through his entire life, but in his injunctions to his family after his death. He declined a seat in the House of Peers in 1835, when offered by William IV.; he respectfully refused the Garter when tendered to him, in 1846, by Queen Victoria; and in his testament he solemnly enjoined his family never to accept honours for his services to his country, whatever they might do for their own. Faithful to his injunctions, Lady Peel, after his death, declined a peerage in her own right, pressed upon her by the Queen. Reserved in his nature, and uncommunicative in his habits, he did not seek to shine in general society, and perhaps was not so well qualified as many inferior men for such displays; but in a select circle of a 350, 351. few, with whom he was intimate, the conversation of no one was more charming. There was a certain retenue, 1 Guizot, Sir R. Peel, XLI. however, maintained with those for whom he had the CHAP. greatest regard; he did not, like Mr Canning, unbosom himself in the most unguarded moments; like Mr Pitt, he had many followers, but few friends. * 1841. 14. of the new The resignation of Ministers had been so long foreseen that Sir R. Peel's arrangements were complete before it Formation took place, and the new Cabinet was announced in a few Ministry. days. It presented a formidable array of talent, as, in addition to nearly all the members of the Duke of Wellington's Ministry, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, who had receded from the ranks of the Whigs, were included in it. Sir R. Peel, of course, was First Lord of the Treasury; the Duke of Wellington had, at his desire, a seat in the Cabinet without any office, save that of Commander-in-Chief, attached to it. Lord Lyndhurst resumed his seat on the Woolsack. Mr Goulburn was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir James Graham was Home Secretary; the Earl of Aberdeen, Foreign; and Lord Stanley, Colonial. Lord Haddington was First Lord of the Admiralty; and Lord Ellenborough, President of the The following charming picture of Sir R. Peel in his family circle at Drayton Manor, is from the hand of no common man, and no ordinary observer :-" Dans l'automne de 1848," says M. Guizot, "je vis Sir Robert Peel au sein de sa famille, et au milieu de la population de ses terres. Lady Peel, encore belle, passionnément et modestement dévouée à son mari; une fille charmante, mariée depuis à un fils de Lord Camoys; trois des fils de Sir Robert, l'un capitaine de vaisseau, déjà renommé par le plus brilliant courage; l'autre qui venait de débuter avec succès dans la Chambre des Communes; le troisième encore livré à ses études. Sur les domaines, de nombreux et heureux fermiers, parmi lesquels un des frères de Sir Robert, qui avait preféré la vie agricole à toute autre carrière; de grands travaux d'amélioration rurale, surtout de drainage, que Sir Robert suivait de près, et nous démontrait avec une connaissance précise des details. Belle existence domestique, grande, simple, bien ordonné avec largeur; dans l'intérieur de la maison une gravité affectueuse, moins animée, moins expansive, moins douce que ne le désirent et ne le comportent nos mœurs; les souvenirs politiques consacrés par une galerie des portraits, la plupart contemporains, soit les collègues de Sir Robert dans le Gouvernement, soit les hommes distingués avec lesquels il avait eu des relations. Hors de la maison, entre le propriétaire et la population environnante, une grande distance, marquée dans les manières, mais comblée par des rapports fréquents, pleins d'équité et de bienveillance de la part de supérieur, sans apparence d'envie ni de servilité chez les inférieurs."-GUIZOT, Sir R. Peel, p. 317-318. |