The anti-Catholic party, however, accepted Mr. Peel’s argument; they did not pretend to say that they governed by justice; and they applauded their orator for showing that, whenever there was an attempt to govern justly, as between man and man, and not unjustly, as between Protestant and Catholic, their cause would be lost.
His reward was the one he most valued. Mr. Abbott, then Speaker, represented the University of Oxford. Mr. Abbott was made a peer, and Mr. Peel, through the interest of Lord Eldon and of the party that Sir James Mackintosh calls the intolerant one, was elected in his place, in spite of the well-known and favourite ambition of Mr. Canning.
With this result of his Irish administration Mr. Peel was satisfied. All the duties attached to his place he had regularly and punctually fulfilled. His life had been steady and decorous in a country where steadiness and decorum were peculiarly meritorious because they were not especially demanded. In all matters where administrative talents were requisite he had displayed them: the police, still called “Peelers,” were his invention. He protected all plans for education, except those which, by removing religious inequalities and animosities, and infusing peace into a discordant society, would have furnished the best; and with a reputation increasing yearly in weight and consideration, resigned his post, and escaped from a scene, the irrational and outrageous contentions of which were out of harmony with his character.
Part II.
Currency.—Views thereupon.—Chairman in 1859 of Finance Committee.—Conduct as to the Queen’s trial.—Becomes Home Secretary.—Improvement of police, criminal law, prisons, &c.—Defends Lord Eldon, but guards himself against being thought to share his political tendencies, and declares himself in favour in Ireland of a general system of education for all religions, and denounces any attempt to mix up conversion with it.—Begins to doubt about the possibility of resisting the Catholic claims.—The Duke of York dies, and Lord Liverpool soon after follows.—Question of Premiership between the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Canning.—Peel sides with the Duke of Wellington.
I.
The great practical question at issue, on Mr. Peel’s return from Ireland, was the currency.
The Bank, in 1797, declared, with the consent of the Government, that its notes would not be converted, on presentation, into gold.