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rapidly passed by both Houses. After further investigation, the Committee agreed upon a plan for the resumption of Cash Payments, which was embodied in a series of resolutions, and submitted to the House. It was founded on the principle laid down by Mr. Ricardo, the economist, that the Bank ought to exchange its notes, not for coin, but for gold ingots, the fineness of which should be attested by a stamp, and only in quantities above a certain weight, at a rate to be diminished gradually until it should have descended to the Mint price of £3. 17s. 10d., per ounce; the Committee's object being to secure the convertibility of the Bank notes into cash. The resolutions were proposed in the lower House, on the 24th of May, by Mr. Peel, in a remarkable speech, which established his reputation as a financier, while it revealed the susceptibility of his mind to new impressions. He acknowledged that, in consequence of the evidence brought before the Committee, and the discussion upon that evidence, his opinion on the subject had undergone a material change. "He was ready to avow, without shame or remorse, that he went into the Committee with an opinion very different from that which he at present entertained; for his views of the subject were most materially different when, in 1811, he voted against the resolutions brought forward by Mr. Horner, as the chairman of the Bullion Committee. Having gone into the inquiry, determined to dismiss all former impressions that he might have received, and to obliterate from his memory the vote that he had given some years since when the same question was discussed, he had resolved to apply to it

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his undivided and unprejudiced attention, and adopt every inference that authentic information or mature reflection should offer to his mind; nor had he any hesitation in stating that, although he should probably now vote if it were again brought before the House, in opposition to the practical measure then recommended [the resumption of Cash Payments by the Bank in two years], he now, with very little modification, concurred in the principles laid down in the first fourteen resolutions submitted to the House by that very able and much lamented individual. He conceived them to represent the true nature and laws of our monetary system.' Proceeding to explain the question on which the House was to decide, he observed that "Sir Isaac Newton, retiring from the sublime studies in which he chiefly passed his life-from the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, and from an investigation of the laws by which their motions were guided,-entered upon the examination of this subject. That great man came, at last, to the old-the vulgar, as some called it-doctrine, that the true standard of value consisted in a definite quantity of gold bullion. Every sound writer on the subject came to the same conclusion, that a certain weight of gold bullion with an impression on it denoting it to be of that certain weight, and of a certain fineness, constituted the only true, intelligible, and adequate standard of value; and to that standard the country must return, or the difficulties of our position would be aggravated as we proceeded." In concluding his powerful address, he adverted to the necessity he was under "of opposing himself to an authority [his father, Sir Robert] to which

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he had always bowed, and he hoped always should bow, with deference; but here he had a great public duty imposed upon him, and from that duty he would not shrink, whatever might be his private feelings." *

Eventually, a bill embodying these resolutions was introduced and passed through both Houses before the conclusion of the session The Bank Act, as it is called (59 Geo. iii. c. 49), still governs the monetary system of the country. It has been the object of as much abuse from one section of financial economists as of eulogy from the other; but no Administration has ventured to propose its repeal, though its operation has twice been suspended, namely, in 1847 and 1857.

Though not a member of the Government, Peel, still fettered by the traditions of Ultra-Toryism, stepped forward to defend the action of the yeomanry on the occasion of the "Peterloo Massacre," and the approval of that action volunteered by the Ministers. He supported them also in passing the notorious "Six Acts." The services which he rendered in his later career may be allowed, however, to obliterate the recollection of the errors into which he was led by his party associations and inherited prejudices.

* Thus, in the first of the three great measures with which his name is associated, as well as in the other two, Catholic Emancipation and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, it was the fate of this distinguished statesman to surprise the public by suddenly appearing as the chief figure in what we may call the triumph of the principles which up to that moment he had spent his life in opposing.-H. MARTINEAU, History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace,' i. 215.

We may note here that this catastrophe called forth Shelley's 'Masque of Anarchy.'

+

That the magistrates acted illegally in dispersing the Manchester meeting is now universally admitted. Even Lord Eldon had his “doubts." See TWISS, Life of Lord Eldon,' ii. 338.

II.

WE record with pleasure that Mr. Peel imitated Mr. Canning's conduct in standing aloof from the persecution, under legal forms, of the unfortunate Queen Caroline, by the King's servants, at the command of their "royal Master." He shared, therefore, in the disfavour with which the King regarded everybody who had the generosity to remember the wrongs inflicted upon her, and the anxieties she had undergone. In the session of 1821, the perennial question of the Catholic claims again demanded the attention of the Commons. Mr. Plunket, on whom Mr. Grattan's mantle had fallen, moved the appointment of a committee to take them into consideration, and obtained a majority of six. The bill, founded on this committee's report, was read a second time, on the 16th of March, by a majority of eleven, after a debate which had been illuminated by one of Mr. Canning's finest efforts of eloquence. In committee some clauses were added for the purpose of regulating the relations of the Irish Catholic Church with the see of Rome, and with the State. On the 2nd of April, the bill was read a third time, and passed by a majority of nineteen.* Mr. Peel,

*Hansard, 2nd Series, iv. 961-1523. The bill was defeated in the Lords, on the second reading, by a majority of 39. It was on this occasion the Duke of York made his famous declaration that his opposition to

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in the course of the debate, made it clear to attentive observers that his mind was passing through a process of education on the subject: for he confessed that the disappointment of the non-expectant Catholics would be a source of pain to him; and he added, that, though he could not conscientiously support any bill for their complete emancipation, he should, if such a measure met with the concurrence of the legislature, do his utmost to reconcile the Protestant community to it.

On Canning's resignation of the Board of Control, late in 1820, the post was offered to Mr. Peel,* but probably for the same reason that Canning had resigned, he refused to accept it. Lord Liverpool, however, felt deeply the necessity of strengthening his Administration; and early in 1821, again approached his supporter, this time offering him the Home Secretaryship. As the proceedings connected with the Queen's trial were now at an end, Peel felt in a position to join the Ministry. His accession was not looked upon with any satisfaction by the friends of religious liberty. The Annual Register' remarked that his political predilections, sympathies, principles, and prejudices, were very much the same with those of Lord Sidmouth; so that the sub

the measure arose from principles which he had embraced ever since he had been able to judge for himself, and which he hoped he should cherish to the last day of his life." "The Duke of York," says Lord Eldon, "has done more to quiet this matter than everything else put together. It has had a great effect."-TwISS, Life of Lord Eldon,' ii. 416.

* On the 8th of June, 1820, Mr. Peel was married to Julia, the youngest daughter of General Sir John Floyd, Bart.