Sir Robert Peel's father, a very wealthy cotton spinner, and also a Member of Parliament, had early made up his mind that his son should become a public man. As soon as he was of age he was returned by the borough of Cashel to the House of Commons, where he soon began to display those qualities for which his family was distinguished—prudence, industry, discreet reserve, with a remarkable ability for utilizing the brains of others. His father, who was made a baronet by Mr. Perceval, became a millionaire by cotton spinning, yet in a generation remarkable for invention, neither he nor one belonging to him originated any of the improvements for preparing or spinning cotton; when one was made, however, its utility soon became apparent to the practical good sense of the Peels; they secured it, and thus founded a house and built up a princely fortune to sustain it; while, too often, the man whose original genius discovered the improvement, lived and died in comparative poverty.[100] Sir Robert Peel carried this second-rate, but most valuable quality, into statesmanship. He was not the originator of any great political amelioration; he was invariably found, at first, in opposition to every measure of the kind; but he did not refuse to examine it; on the contrary, he studied it carefully, weighed the reasons put forward in support of it, watched with nervous anxiety the tide of public opinion, and when that could no longer be resisted with safety, he took the question up and sustained it by the arguments he had been combating before—remodelled, to be sure, occasionally, but still the same; threw the weight of his high character into the scale, and thus not only contributed to its success, but secured it. Such is the history of Catholic Emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Hence a bitter political adversary of his, who has drawn his public character with much candour and ability, and not in an ungenerous spirit either, says of him, that "his life was one of perpetual education." Elsewhere he puts pretty much the same idea in a severer and more sarcastic form, when he asserts that Sir Robert Peel's mind "was one vast appropriating clause."[101]
Some of his eulogists assert that he had made up his mind on the great measures he carried through Parliament long before he had given them his support, but that he was awaiting a favourable opportunity to declare his views, whilst he was in the meantime educating his party. If this be intended as a compliment, as it seems to be, it is a very doubtful one. Assuming it to be true, he must for many years of his life have been a mere hypocrite. The opinion that he himself was gradually educated into these views would seem to be the truer as it is also the kinder one; besides his own declarations coincide with it. There was what is called a Bullion Committee in 1811, and another in 1819, Sir Robert (then Mr.) Peel being chairman of the latter. The former was called Mr. Hooner's Committee. In 1819, speaking of the inconvertible paper money, he recanted his views of 1811, as his opinions with regard to the question had undergone "a material change." "He had," he said, "voted against Mr. Hooner's resolutions in 1811, he would now vote for them if they were brought forward." In his Memoirs, speaking of the Corn Laws, "he had," he says, "adopted at an early period of his public life, without, he fears, much serious reflection, the opinions generally prevalent of the justice and necessity of protection to domestic agriculture, but the progress of discussion had made a material change in the opinions of many persons" [himself of course amongst the number] "with regard to the policy of protection to domestic agriculture." It is true, then, that this eminent statesman was at school all his life, a diligent student, willing and anxious to learn, but always conducting his studies from a Conservative standpoint. It is no discredit to him—far from it. And although the tide of progress carried him to the extent of breaking up his own party, in doing so he was acting, he considered, for the interests of England. Nothing can be more absurd and wicked in a statesman than to allow himself to be impounded within the narrow iron-bound circle of party, and to persevere in sustaining the views and principles of that party against justice, conscience and fact.
Great and varied as were the powers of Sir Robert Peel as a public speaker, he was not an orator in the strictest and highest sense of that word. True oratory is the offspring of genius, and he, gifted though he was, had not the sacred fire of genius in his soul. In the style which he adopted, and which was probably the best suited to his natural powers, he was all but perfect: lucid, argumentation, frank, at least in seeming, bland, persuasive; always singularly respectful not only to the House, but to the humblest member of it; his speeches partook more of the lecture and less of oratorical display than those of most other public men with anything like his reputation; but they were admirably suited to an educated and deliberative assembly like the House of Commons—and hence he influenced—almost ruled it, as no other man did before or since. Knowing this, he never felt so happy or so much at home as in that scene of his labours and his triumphs. His gesture was inferior: he used it but seldom, and when he did it added neither to the grace nor effectiveness of his delivery. He sometimes appeared to be at a loss to know what to do with his arms: at one time he would thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his vest; at another he would let his arms fall into a sort of swinging motion at his sides, where he allowed, rather than used them, to toss back his coatskirts in a confused, undignified manner.
He never spoke on important questions without careful preparation, as was always evident from the facts and arguments of which his speeches chiefly consisted, as well as from their careful arrangement. His voice was fine, and he had the skill, rare enough in public speakers, of modulating it with excellent effect.
The happiest portions of his speeches were those in which he endeavoured, by artful appeals to the good sense and patriotism of his hearers, to win them over to his views; and the frequent success that attended such efforts is their highest praise. He seldom attempted an ambitious flight, and when he did his best friends felt it was not his true line. He dealt but little in figurative language, except when argument failed him; still he has left some specimens of much beauty in this style. In his great speech introducing Catholic Emancipation in 1829, he told Parliament it had but two courses to follow—to advance or to recede; to advance by conceding the Catholic claims, or to recede by reimposing those portions of the penal laws already repealed. Dwelling on the impossibility and insanity of the latter course, he said: "We cannot replace the Roman Catholics in the position in which we found them, when the system of relaxation and indulgence began. We have given them the opportunity of acquiring education, wealth, and power. We have removed with our own hands the seal from the vessel in which a mighty spirit was enclosed; but it will not, like the genius in the fable, return within its narrow confines to gratify our curiosity, and to enable us to cast it back into the obscurity from which we evoked it." Here is another specimen from his speech on the Reform Bill of 1832. He opposed that Bill with all his energy, as is well known. Lord Durham, a very advanced reformer for his time, and son-in-law to Earl Grey, the Prime Minister, was known to have influenced that nobleman in retaining the most liberal clauses of the bill. For his years he was a very juvenile looking man, which gave point to Sir Robert Peel's words when he said so happily: "It would appear as if the reins of the State had been confided to some youthful and inexperienced hands; and who, left without any guiding principle, or any controlling sense of duty, were rushing on with headlong violence which wiser men could neither moderate nor restrain.... They should have said to any one of these persons, whose ambition made him press for an employment so fraught with danger to himself and injury to others,
' —— non est tua tuta voluntas.
Magna petis, Phaëton, et quæ nec viribus istis
Munera conveniant, nec tam puerilibus annis!'
They should have given him the salutary caution that the fiery steeds which he aspired to guide required the hand of restraint and not the voice of incitement—
'Sponte suâ properant; labor est inhibere voluntas;