'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to the enemies who besiege them.'
Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' [Down], he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents can make is that a sum of 2,000l. will be necessary. The natural expenses will be 500l. These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to the money for votes, that I expect from Government.'
Peel replied that he could not answer for the Government in England, and that the Irish Government possessed no funds for this purpose; he would himself have been ready to send Croker '1,000l. as a private concern between ourselves with no reference whatever to Government'; but he had it not. 'If you think proper,' he added, 'to take the chance whether it [the Government] will assist you, you can promise.' For about six years Peel was constantly receiving from Croker requests for places, in order to discharge 'debts of gratitude' incurred at this election; and in 1816 we find the Government very nearly beaten in the House of Commons in an attempt to raise Croker's own salary.
'Could you tell me,' writes Lord Palmerston to Peel, 'whether you think there is any probability of a contest for the county of Sligo at the next election? I could at the present moment make from 280 to 290 voters by giving leases to tenants who are now holding at will. If there is any chance of their being of use next year, I will do so forthwith, and register them in time. If not, I should perhaps postpone giving twenty-one years' leases till matters look a little more propitious to the payment of rents.'
'Lord Lorton wrote yesterday to his agent to make all the freeholders he can on his small Queen's County property. He says he is sorry he can't make more than twenty, but that those shall go against Pole.'
A few illustrations of the minor details of patronage may be added. One gentleman called upon Peel about an election in Clare, but 'said that he would make no promise of his interest unless he received a pledge from me that his two brothers should be provided for—one in the Church, and the other advanced in the profession of the law.'
Lord C. 'wanted, long since, to make terms with me for his support in Cork, ... and wished to be one of a committee for superintending the patronage of the county.'
'When G. wants a baronetcy, he is very rich; and when he wants a place, he is very poor. I think we may fairly turn the tables on him, and when he asks to be a baronet, make his poverty the objection, and his wealth when he asks for an office.'
'Pole is constantly pressing K., of the Navigation Board, for promotion.... I am told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.'
'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' 'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling. Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would be more suited to him.... What do you think of the following arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason, that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior, the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, vice H., which (though he will lose 200l. a year) will greatly oblige his father, the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by making him a Commissioner of Accounts, vice M.'