supposed to have found in Sir James Scarlett an Attorney-general who was not only willing, but eager to employ the law as an engine of oppression." During the late session of parliament, the conduct of Sir James had been severely scrutinised, and blame, by persons of every party, abundantly bestowed upon him for his arbitrary, persecuting prosecutions of Mr. Alexander, the editor of the Morning Journal; and the French ministers were thought to have adopted the principles of Sir James Scarlett, only employing them on a larger scale, and with a bolder hand. The number and extent of these prosecutions might well alarm people. Sir James Scarlett first prosecuted the paper for a libel on Lord Lyndhurst, the Lord Chancellor. A second ex officio information was filed against the editor and proprietors, because an article in it charged the Duke of Wellington with being an ambitious, unprincipled, and dangerous minister, and with keeping his majesty under degrading and unconstitutional control; and his majesty, with being a king who could be so controlled. This was described as a libel on the king and his government. Not content with this, another ex officio information was filed against the same defendant, for a "libel tending to degrade the king, and bring his majesty's government into contempt, and inflame the minds of his majesty's subjects against both houses of parliament." Even this did not satisfy the appetite of the Attorney-general. He proceeded in a fourth case, by preferring a bill of indictment against the printer of the Morning Journal, for a libel which appeared in a letter addressed to the editor of the paper, and which accused the duke of "despicable cant, and affected moderation;" of showing "a want of compassion, and of those more kindly and tender sympathies which distinguish the heart of a man from that of a proud dictator and tyrant." The libel also charged the duke with being guilty "of the grossest treachery to his country, or else the most arrant cowardice or treachery-cowardice and artifice united." And all this rodomontade was indulged in, and nonsense uttered, because the duke had proposed and carried the act for the emancipation of the Catholics. No sooner was this indictment preferred, than the real author declared himself, and his situation fully explained why the raving and rant had been used against the Duke of Wellington, the author being chaplain to the Duke of Cumberland, one of the most unpopular men-and deservedly so-in England at that time. The declaration of the name and character of the actual author did not at all affect the course pursued by the Attorneygeneral, who still prosecuted the printer, and allowed the parson to remain unmolested. Such actions as these tended much to alarm the friends of freedom, especially when the manifestoes of the Tory party of those days were all couched in the most vehement phase of despotism. Charles X. was declared by them to be entirely in the right. Their language was everywhere the same. "The system of concession will not avail; the revolutionary spirit must be crushed in every country, or it will overturn every throne." The people, it is clear, had very good reason to be alarmed. At the general election, which took place at this juncture, a heavy blow was dealt to government, and the way was prepared for the great struggle which ended in the triumph of parliamentary reform.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HISTORY OF REFORM.

FROM Great Britain, in 1830, there was a unanimous and irresistible demand for political reform. The nation was ripe for it; and it was required by the exigencies of the times.

It was right that Manchester and Birmingham, with their intelligence, wealth, and industry, should be represented in the House of Commons. It was wrong that boroughs should be private property, and that rich landlords and haughty noblemen should sell them for money, or a step in the peerage, or for the emoluments of office. No wonder was it, that when the people found themselves over-taxed; when trade was crippled and destroyed by obnoxious excise regulations; when the national expenditure was extravagant and profligate, that men should see that the root of the evil lay in the system of representation, which was utterly rotten and corrupt.

Mr. Pitt had seen this, and had devised a remedy; but the French revolution created such a terror here, that parliamentary reform came to be regarded as the mad dream of a fanatic or a leveller.

During the long and dark reign of war, the Tories were in office; and the chief question left for the opposition to trade on was Catholic relief.

Peace came, and Toryism flourished, as was to be expected under the circumstances. During the sway of the Tories, England had humiliated the pride of France, and laid the usurper low. It was only natural, then, that the reign of that party should be prolonged.

At this time the Tories were under the guidance of two of its greatest men, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.

The first was no mere soldier. He was one of the ablest administrators of modern times. He had a training for statesmanship such as rarely falls to the lot of men; and had a profound acquaintance with all the rulers and diplomatists of the continent. "In India, and in Spain, and in Portugal," says Mr. Roebuck, "he led armies, and he governed nations. To feed his armies, and to keep the people for whom he was nominally engaged, obedient to, and favourable to his cause, he was obliged to bring into action all those great qualities of mind which are needed for the practical government of mankind. Every intricate question of finance; the various and perplexing operations of trade; the effects of every institution, commercial, political, of law and administration-all had to be understood, weighed, watched, and applied while he led the armies of England, and, in fact, governed the people of Spain and Portugal. The vast combinations needed for his great campaigns, made him familiar with every operation of government; and the peculiar relation in which he stood to the people of Spain and Portugal, and their various rulers, called into action every faculty of his mind, and made him profoundly skilled in the difficult art of leading and controlling men of all classes and of all characters." The reader who desires to acquire a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the duke's difficulties in the Peninsula, and the mode in which he conquered them, should study Napier's history of his campaigns, and his own despatches. A great authority, and an opponent-Mr. Brougham-stated that the duke, in the art of exposition in a deliberative assembly, wanted neither power nor skill. "It was said," observed the great Whig orator in the House of Commons, during a debate on the address, January 29th, 1828, "that the noble duke was incapable of speaking in public, as a first minister of the crown ought to do. Now, I conceive there is no validity in that objection. I happened to be present last year when the noble duke had the modesty and candour to declare, in another place, that he was unfit for the situation of minister; and I really think I never heard a better speech in my life. Nothing could be more suited to the occasion. I never saw less want of capacity in an individual who might be called on to take an active part in debate. This, therefore, is not my objection to the appointment."

"The more I see," writes Mr. T. Raikes, in his Diary, "of this extraordinary man, the more I am struck with his singularly quick apprehension; the facility with which he seizes the real gist of every subject, separates all the dross and extraneous matter from the real argument, and places his finger directly on the int which is to be considered. No rash speculations, no verbiage, no circumlo

cution; but truth and sagacity, emanating from a cool and quickly apprehensive judgment, fortified by great experience, and conversant with each and every subject; and delivered with a brevity, a frankness and simplicity of manner, and a confidential kindness which, without diminishing that profound respect which every man must feel for such a character, still places him at ease in his society, and almost makes him think he is conversing with an intimate friend. His whole mind (this was written in 1832) seems engrossed by the love of his country. He said—We have seen great changes; we can only hope for the best; we cannot foresee what will happen: but few people will be sanguine enough to imagine that we shall ever again be as prosperous as we have been.' His language breathed no bitterness, neither sunk into despondency. He seemed to be aware of everything that was going on; watching, not without anxiety, the progress of events; and constantly prepared to deliver his sentiments, in the House of Peers, on all subjects which affected the interests of England."

In the House of Commons, the leadership was placed in the hands-the appropriate hands-of Sir Robert Peel.

The honourable baronet had come of a good stock. We trace his family back to a small yeoman, occupying land near Blackburn, in the middle of the last century. He was honest, hard-working, and thrifty. He, finding farming not sufficient for the employment of all his family, engaged in the domestic trade of calico-making. He was also enterprising, and was one of the first to adopt the carding cylinder, then recently invented; but the chief result of his success was the improvement he effected in printing calico. His character is thus described by his son, the first baronet :-"He moved in a confined sphere, and employed his talents in improving the cotton trade. He had neither the wish nor the opportunity of making himself acquainted with his native country, or society far removed from his native county of Lancaster. I lived under his roof till I attained the age of manhood, and had many opportunities of discovering that he possessed, in an eminent degree, a mechanical genius, and a good heart. He had many sons, and he placed them all in situations where they might be useful to each other. The cotton trade was preferred, as the one best suited to attain this object; and by habits of industry, and by imparting to his offspring an intimate knowledge of the various branches of the cotton manufacture, he lived to see his children connected together in business, and, by their successful exertions, become, without one exception, opulent and happy. My father may truly be said to have been the founder of our family; and he so accurately appreciated the importance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, that he was often heard to say, that the gains to individuals were small, compared with the national gains arising from trade."

Sir Robert Peel, the first baronet, and the second manufacturer of the name, inherited all his father's enterprise, ability, and industry. His position, on starting in life, was little more than that of a labouring man. When Robert was only twenty years of age, he determined to begin the business of cotton-printing, which he had by this time learnt with his father, on his own account. His uncle, James Haworth, and William Yates, of Blackburn, joined him; the whole capital which they could raise among them amounting to only about £500, the principal part of which was supplied by Mr. Yates. Robert Peel, though comparatively a mere youth, supplied the practical knowledge of the business; but it was said of him, and proved true, that he carried an old head on young shoulders. A ruined cornmill, with its adjoining fields, was purchased for a comparatively small sum, near the then insignificant town of Bury, where the works, long after, continued to be known as "The Ground;" and a few wooden sheds having been run up, the firm commenced their business, in a very humble way, in the year 1770, adding to it that of cotton-spinning a few years after. The frugal style in which the partners lived may be inferred from the following incident in their early career. William Yates, being a married man with a family, commenced housekeeping on a small scale; and to oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The

sum which the latter paid for board and lodging was only eight shillings a week; but Yates, considering this too little, insisted on the weekly payment being increased a shilling, to which Peel at first demurred, and a difference between the partners took place, which was eventually compromised by the lodger paying an advance of sixpence a week. This Robert Peel married his partner's daughter, who became a noble and beautiful woman, fitted to grace any station in life. She died in 1803, only three years after the baronetcy had been conferred upon her husband. The career of Peel, Yates, and Co., was, throughout, one of great and uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert was himself the soul of the concern: to great energy and application he united much practical sagacity, and first-rate mercantile abilities. He was a man of iron mind and frame, and toiled unceasingly. "In short," says Dr. Smiles," he was to cotton-printing what Arkwright was to cotton-spinning, and his success was equally great."

The great statesman began life under many advantages. The father, who had never been beaten, was determined that his son should be a political success; and such, undoubtedly, he became. When a boy, at Drayton Manor, his father was accustomed to set him up at table to practise extemporaneous speaking; and he early accustomed him to repeat as much of the Sunday's sermon as he could carry away in his memory. Little progress was made at first; but, by steady perseverance, the habit of attention soon became powerful, and the sermon was repeated, at length, almost verbatim. When afterwards replying, in succession, to the arguments of his parliamentary opponents-an art in which he was, perhaps, unrivalled-it was little surmised that the extraordinary power which he displayed on such occasions had been originally trained under the discipline of his father, in the parish church of Drayton.

The career of Mr. Peel, at Harrow and at Oxford, was creditable alike to his industry, his talents, and his perseverance. In 1820, he married Julia, youngest daughter of the late General Sir J. Floyd; but, long before this, he had acquired parliamentary position and fame. Having been Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and Chief Secretary for Ireland, he succeeded Lord Sidmouth as Secretary of State for the Home Department, in 1822, and held that office till 1827, when he resigned, and remained out of place till the formation of the Duke of Wellington's administration. He then returned to the Home Department, and continued there till the accession of Earl Grey to power, in 1830; was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, from December, 1834, till April, 1835; and First Lord of the Treasury alone, from September, 1841, to July, 1846. In 1850, his career was suddenly cut short by a fall from his horse. He sat for Oxford University from 1818 to 1829, when he was thrown out by Sir Robert Inglis: he then sat for Westbury till 1830, when he was elected for Tamworth, of which place he was the representative when he died-mourned sincerely and bitterly all over the land. Statues were voted to him by parliament, and eagerly subscribed to by the public.

The late Lord Hardinge, who knew Peel intimately, and loved him with a warm and lasting affection, once lamented to Sir Lawrence Peel, in India, "Peel's unexpansibleness (for those were his words) as the head of the Conservative party." He said that Croker had complained, "il ne se déboutonné pas;" adding to that remark, "that his reserve impaired the usefulness, and was injurious to the interests of the party." "If he would," said Lord Hardinge, "but show himself as he is!" Peel's oratory lacked force for the same reason. His style was diffuse; and his diction, disfigured occasionally by official vagueness, had also too much, as Sir Lawrence confesses, of the smooth regularity which early cultivation of the power of expression is apt to give. He rarely gave his imagination her head. his speeches there are no pointed thoughts, no bursts of impassioned eloquence. In 1811, Mr. Plumer Ward speaks of "one of the most beautiful as well as argumentative speeches ever delivered in the House by young Peel, which gave another proof that there was ability on our side." Mr. Charles Wynn writes

In

to the Marquis of Buckingham, on the retirement of Canning, in 1820-"My estimate of Peel is, I am aware, higher than yours. I agree with you that he cannot supply the effect of one of Canning's glittering, eloquent speeches. Talent, independent fortune, official habits, and reputation, have, I am persuaded, disposed more men to unite with him than any person whom you could name amongst us." People began to think much about him. In 1824, Ward writes-"It is certain Peel is a very shadow, and there is great fear of his lasting." Nevertheless he did last, and did the state some service.

Of the real, sterling genuineness of his character, a well-informed writer, in the British Quarterly, has given an illustration. "At one time it seemed as if there were no love lost between Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Cobden. Before the free-trade struggle, however, was over, Sir Robert Peel addressed to him a letter, as remarkable for its contents as for the signature and superscription; in which he reiterated the acknowledgments he had made in the House of Commons, that from Mr. Cobden he had tardily learned the wisdom and necessity of free trade in corn. He explained, with his accustomed clearness and completeness, the considerations by which he had been governed in breaking with his party, and renouncing power for the sake of accomplishing a great national good; and concluded by expressing a wish that he and his correspondent might in future meet as private acquaintances, if not friends. Mr. Cobden replied in befitting terms to this communication; but he went abroad before any opportunity arose of meeting the ex-minister; and on his return, from some cause unexplained, no further step, we believe, on either side was taken towards a rapprochement." Such conduct was equally creditable to Sir Robert Peel's head and heart.

With Canning Peel was never very friendly. Such entries as the following are often met with in the Buckingham correspondence:-"Peel and the duke lean together." "The subalterns have noticed an indifference of manner, by no means concealed, on the part of Peel towards Canning. At the same time the latter never charged Peel with behaving badly to him-a charge made frequently in after-life." "Ward says," writes one of the duke's correspondents, "Canning always exempted Peel from the charge of unfair opposition—always did it in a fair, open, manly manner." "There

Another of the Tory party thus describes Sir Robert Peel in 1833:is one thing which appears to me very striking in the present new aspect of affairs; and that is, the important position to which Sir R. Peel seems now to direct his views. In his opening speech, which was highly applauded, he has shown considerable address. He went down to the House that night with the public feeling certainly against him. He returned home with the tide of popularity fully in his favour, even from the ministerial benches, the members of which seemed grateful for his obedience. He has declared himself to belong to no party; but his object is insensibly to make one, of which he himself shall be the centre and the chief. He is an ambitious man; and to this great object his endeavours will invariably tend. Now, when we consider his talents, his knowledge of business, his eloquence, and, above all, his twenty years' experience in the forms and usages of the House of Commons, joined to that guarded conduct which his present new position forces upon him-a position quite different to his former triumphant post, where the confidence in an obsequious majority might at times have rendered him more buoyant, less cautious, and less sensitive as to public opinion-I say, all those circumstances considered, and, on the other hand, looking to the complexion of this new parliament, a large proportion of which consists of men really and de facto bound to no party-of loose Tories, loose Whigs, loose Conservatives, and loose Radicals-acknowledging no head, but wishing to become influential by some means or other not yet ascertained by them-it is not very rash to anticipate, that to his talents it may be given to unite their discordant interests; and that, under the plausible character of a liberal Tory, the conviction may imperceptibly steal into the House of Commons, that Sir Robert Peel is the fittest man to govern this country."