FOOTNOTES:

Sir Robert Peel’s conduct will serve them in many matters as a useful example, as a solemn warning, as a practical illustration of the homely adage, that “honesty is the best policy.” We have seen enough of the evils entailed by a masked and disingenuous policy, which delights in allowing people to deceive themselves. Let us now contrast with it the advantages of a sincere, open, and consistent course. Let us profit by the late Premier’s career as an example, in which case it will not have been without its use; and let us, by so doing, avoid the disgrace of falling again under his power.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:1Dix Ans à la Cour du Roi Louis Philippe, et Souvenirs du Temps de l’Empire et de la Restauration.ParB. Appert, de la Société Royale des Prisons de France. Berlin and Paris, 1846.2According to old usage, each defunct King of France awaited, at the entrance of the vault at St. Denis, the body of his successor, and was not consigned to his final resting-place till its arrival.3Biog. Univ. xiii. 482-491, (Eugene.)4Histoire de mon Tempe par Frederick IV., p. 174.5Viz. Vimiera, the Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, Toulouse, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo.6Wanderungen eines alten Soldaten.Von Wilhelm, Baron von Rahden. Berlin, 1846.7Even in the House there are some free-traders by no means irreproachable on this head, gentlemen whose speeches are profuse in invectives against the whole body of the landlords, and who, when freed from Parliamentary restraint, denounce them as robbers, and openly express “their desire of levelling the aristocracy to the dust.” However sincere these patriots may be, this ungenerous tone does not betoken that large and comprehensive mind which we look for in a Member of Parliament; and it is the fortunate possessors of minds like these, who, in our days, pleasantly style themselves Liberals!Lucus a non lucendo.Where will this abuse of language stop? An American slave-breeder will be the next claimant of the name, when these Parliamentary Thersitæ set themselves up as Liberals!8And this for a considerable period of time. In the last case of the Corn Laws, by his own account, it would seem to have been aboutthree years.9See this point well put in Whewell’s Treatise on Morals—a book which we strongly recommend to Sir Robert’s perusal, as containing many interesting views on these topics, and likely to be of peculiar service tohim.10Videagain Whewell’s Treatise.11In the matter of the Factory Bill.12Simply in its peculiar naïveté. We do not mean to assimilate the Irish character with that of Peel.13“Cleon.—There, I’m the first, you see, to bring ye a chair.Sausage-seller.—But a table—here I’ve brought it, first and foremost.Cleon.—See here this little half meal-cake from Pylos,Made from the flour of victory and success.Sausage-seller.—But here’s a cake! See here! which the heavenly goddessPatted and flatted herself, with her ivory hand,For your own eating.* * * * *Cleon.—This slice of rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Sausage-seller.—This whole great rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Cleon[to the S. S.]—Ah, but hare-pie—where will you get hare-pie?Sausage-seller[aside.]—Hare-pie! What shall I do? Come, now’s the time,O mind, invent me now some sneaking trick.Cleon.[to the S. S. showing the dish which he is going to present.]—Look there, you poor rapscallion!Sausage-seller.Pshaw, no matter.I’ve people of my own there in attendance.They’re coming here.—I see them.Cleon.—Who? What are they?Sausage-seller.—Envoys with bags of money.Cleon.—Where? Where are they?Where? Where?Sausage-seller.—What’s that to you? Can’t ye be civil?Why don’t you let the foreigners alone?—[While Cleon’s attention is absorbed in looking for the supposed envoys, the Sausage-seller dexterously snatches the hare-pie out of his hands, and presents it to the Demus.]There’s a hare-pie, my dear own little Demus,A nice hare-pie, I’ve brought ye!—See, look there!Cleon[returning.]—By Jove, he’s stolen it, and served it up!Sausage-seller.—Just as you did the prisoners at Pylos.Demus.—Where did ye get it? How did ye steal it? Tell me.Sausage-seller.—The scheme and the suggestion were Divine;The theft and the execution simply mine.Cleon.—I took the trouble.Sausage-seller.But I served it up.Demus.—Well, he that brings the thing must get the thanks.Cleon[aside.]—Alas, I’m circumvented and undone,Out-faced and over-impudentified.”The Knightsof Aristophanes, translated by Frere, l. 1164-9, and 1189-1206.14We would not apply this strong language to all the advocates of the measure, but only to those who uphold it on principle as an enlightened and liberal one. If it is honestly put forward on low commercial grounds, not on high moral ones; if it is frankly confessed that it is an ignoble and selfish measure, in which our love of sugar and of revenue prevails over the love of our fellows; if we own that we have not virtue enough to resist these palpable and material temptations for the sake of the impalpable and invisible ones of right and humanity;—let it pass, (sorry though it be;)—our pious and enlightened nation is already disfigured with too many of these commercial blots, to make this further additional one matter of much especial censure. We can only lament that having made some beginning in the true and good line, we are so easily induced to give it up; that whereas before we could point to one brilliant exception as a source of light and hope, this is now to be extinguished, and we are to relapse into total darkness. But it is the advocacy of this measure on principle, as an eminently liberal and Christian one, as a triumph of truth, liberty, and reason, which is so peculiarly disgusting, and argues the corruption of the people. It is the sneer at every thing like true generous principle, the laugh at the high moral, the complacency in the low commercial, the assertion of the paramount importance of mere considerations of lucre over all the laws of humanity, that forms the bad feature in the case of these holy Liberals. When we find people, in a tone of profound piety, putting forth the purely commercial principle of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, as an inviolable law of the Great Parent of the Universe, the infringement of which, even to avert the deepest suffering from our fellows, is an impious rebellion against His will; when we are implored not to do evil, that good may come, (the evil being a want of sweetness in our tea, and the good, the preserving from slavery and degradation a large number of our race;) when we are exhorted to deal freely in slave produce, for the sake of promoting “peace and good-will among all mankind;” then, I say, that this servile liberality, this Evangelical cupidity, this Christianity of the ’Change, is beyond all expression detestable, and more worthy of the shafts of Voltaire’s satire than the Christianity of the Inquisition. The present measure will probably cause a greater amount of suffering in the course of a few years, than the Inquisition did during the whole period of its existence.15The above conversation, though with no pretensions to exact accuracy in the expressions, is strictly founded on fact.16Hansard’s Debates, vol. xx. New Series, p. 731. The speech is said, in a note on p. 727, to have been “inserted with the permission and approbation of Mr. Secretary Peel.”17The expression which was chiefly insisted on in that discussion, and which he strenuously laboured to disprove, was that in which he was reported to have said, that in 1825 he gave it as his opinion to Lord Liverpool that “something ought to be done for the Catholics.” He strongly denied having ever used those words, and as indeed they are not found in many of the reports of his speech, there would not appear to be sufficient evidence that he did so. But it was labour lost to disprove the point, for this sentence after all was by no means so clear or explicit as that which stands in his own revised report. He might have stated that something ought to be done for the Catholics, without its being thereby evident, that by that something he meant the measure of Catholic Emancipation. Some other course might have “suggested itself to his mind,” as a solution of the difficulty. But when he tells us in so many words, that the course which then suggested itself to his mind was the very same which he afterwards pursued in proposing the measure of Catholic Emancipation, no room for question is left; this is a precise and explicit statement to which we do not see how two meanings can well be given. When such a statement stands in his own corrected report, it was worse than idle so strenuously to disclaim the weaker one.18Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 6, Art. 30. Pauthier’s Translation.19This chronology might seem difficult to conciliate with the life of an individual, but it must be remembered that the Robert Peel never dies. There are always in the world not only one, but many representatives of the character.20Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 7, Art. 37. Pauthier’s Translation.21Talleyrand is a good example.22Catholic Bill, Factory Bill, Corn Bill.23That this opposition to Canning was characterised by a peculiar virulence on the part of some of its members, appears to be indisputable, inasmuch as it seems to be the received opinion of those best acquainted with Canning, that it had a considerable share in causing his death. Thus, not to mention other testimonies, his widow, when Huskisson subsequently joined some of these politicians in office, writes to him to reproach him with having joined her husband’s murderers. Peel himself at the time did not escape from severe blame on account of it, and one of his relatives, Mr Dawson, is mentioned as one of the most notable of the culprits.24Translated by Shelley:“Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind:The foul cubs like the parents are.”

1Dix Ans à la Cour du Roi Louis Philippe, et Souvenirs du Temps de l’Empire et de la Restauration.ParB. Appert, de la Société Royale des Prisons de France. Berlin and Paris, 1846.

2According to old usage, each defunct King of France awaited, at the entrance of the vault at St. Denis, the body of his successor, and was not consigned to his final resting-place till its arrival.

3Biog. Univ. xiii. 482-491, (Eugene.)

4Histoire de mon Tempe par Frederick IV., p. 174.

5Viz. Vimiera, the Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, Toulouse, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo.

6Wanderungen eines alten Soldaten.Von Wilhelm, Baron von Rahden. Berlin, 1846.

7Even in the House there are some free-traders by no means irreproachable on this head, gentlemen whose speeches are profuse in invectives against the whole body of the landlords, and who, when freed from Parliamentary restraint, denounce them as robbers, and openly express “their desire of levelling the aristocracy to the dust.” However sincere these patriots may be, this ungenerous tone does not betoken that large and comprehensive mind which we look for in a Member of Parliament; and it is the fortunate possessors of minds like these, who, in our days, pleasantly style themselves Liberals!Lucus a non lucendo.Where will this abuse of language stop? An American slave-breeder will be the next claimant of the name, when these Parliamentary Thersitæ set themselves up as Liberals!

8And this for a considerable period of time. In the last case of the Corn Laws, by his own account, it would seem to have been aboutthree years.

9See this point well put in Whewell’s Treatise on Morals—a book which we strongly recommend to Sir Robert’s perusal, as containing many interesting views on these topics, and likely to be of peculiar service tohim.

10Videagain Whewell’s Treatise.

11In the matter of the Factory Bill.

12Simply in its peculiar naïveté. We do not mean to assimilate the Irish character with that of Peel.

13“Cleon.—There, I’m the first, you see, to bring ye a chair.Sausage-seller.—But a table—here I’ve brought it, first and foremost.Cleon.—See here this little half meal-cake from Pylos,Made from the flour of victory and success.Sausage-seller.—But here’s a cake! See here! which the heavenly goddessPatted and flatted herself, with her ivory hand,For your own eating.* * * * *Cleon.—This slice of rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Sausage-seller.—This whole great rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Cleon[to the S. S.]—Ah, but hare-pie—where will you get hare-pie?Sausage-seller[aside.]—Hare-pie! What shall I do? Come, now’s the time,O mind, invent me now some sneaking trick.Cleon.[to the S. S. showing the dish which he is going to present.]—Look there, you poor rapscallion!Sausage-seller.Pshaw, no matter.I’ve people of my own there in attendance.They’re coming here.—I see them.Cleon.—Who? What are they?Sausage-seller.—Envoys with bags of money.Cleon.—Where? Where are they?Where? Where?Sausage-seller.—What’s that to you? Can’t ye be civil?Why don’t you let the foreigners alone?—[While Cleon’s attention is absorbed in looking for the supposed envoys, the Sausage-seller dexterously snatches the hare-pie out of his hands, and presents it to the Demus.]There’s a hare-pie, my dear own little Demus,A nice hare-pie, I’ve brought ye!—See, look there!Cleon[returning.]—By Jove, he’s stolen it, and served it up!Sausage-seller.—Just as you did the prisoners at Pylos.Demus.—Where did ye get it? How did ye steal it? Tell me.Sausage-seller.—The scheme and the suggestion were Divine;The theft and the execution simply mine.Cleon.—I took the trouble.Sausage-seller.But I served it up.Demus.—Well, he that brings the thing must get the thanks.Cleon[aside.]—Alas, I’m circumvented and undone,Out-faced and over-impudentified.”The Knightsof Aristophanes, translated by Frere, l. 1164-9, and 1189-1206.

“Cleon.—There, I’m the first, you see, to bring ye a chair.Sausage-seller.—But a table—here I’ve brought it, first and foremost.Cleon.—See here this little half meal-cake from Pylos,Made from the flour of victory and success.Sausage-seller.—But here’s a cake! See here! which the heavenly goddessPatted and flatted herself, with her ivory hand,For your own eating.* * * * *Cleon.—This slice of rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Sausage-seller.—This whole great rich sweet-cake, take it from me.Cleon[to the S. S.]—Ah, but hare-pie—where will you get hare-pie?Sausage-seller[aside.]—Hare-pie! What shall I do? Come, now’s the time,O mind, invent me now some sneaking trick.Cleon.[to the S. S. showing the dish which he is going to present.]—Look there, you poor rapscallion!Sausage-seller.Pshaw, no matter.I’ve people of my own there in attendance.They’re coming here.—I see them.Cleon.—Who? What are they?Sausage-seller.—Envoys with bags of money.Cleon.—Where? Where are they?Where? Where?Sausage-seller.—What’s that to you? Can’t ye be civil?Why don’t you let the foreigners alone?—[While Cleon’s attention is absorbed in looking for the supposed envoys, the Sausage-seller dexterously snatches the hare-pie out of his hands, and presents it to the Demus.]There’s a hare-pie, my dear own little Demus,A nice hare-pie, I’ve brought ye!—See, look there!Cleon[returning.]—By Jove, he’s stolen it, and served it up!Sausage-seller.—Just as you did the prisoners at Pylos.Demus.—Where did ye get it? How did ye steal it? Tell me.Sausage-seller.—The scheme and the suggestion were Divine;The theft and the execution simply mine.Cleon.—I took the trouble.Sausage-seller.But I served it up.Demus.—Well, he that brings the thing must get the thanks.Cleon[aside.]—Alas, I’m circumvented and undone,Out-faced and over-impudentified.”The Knightsof Aristophanes, translated by Frere, l. 1164-9, and 1189-1206.

The Knightsof Aristophanes, translated by Frere, l. 1164-9, and 1189-1206.

14We would not apply this strong language to all the advocates of the measure, but only to those who uphold it on principle as an enlightened and liberal one. If it is honestly put forward on low commercial grounds, not on high moral ones; if it is frankly confessed that it is an ignoble and selfish measure, in which our love of sugar and of revenue prevails over the love of our fellows; if we own that we have not virtue enough to resist these palpable and material temptations for the sake of the impalpable and invisible ones of right and humanity;—let it pass, (sorry though it be;)—our pious and enlightened nation is already disfigured with too many of these commercial blots, to make this further additional one matter of much especial censure. We can only lament that having made some beginning in the true and good line, we are so easily induced to give it up; that whereas before we could point to one brilliant exception as a source of light and hope, this is now to be extinguished, and we are to relapse into total darkness. But it is the advocacy of this measure on principle, as an eminently liberal and Christian one, as a triumph of truth, liberty, and reason, which is so peculiarly disgusting, and argues the corruption of the people. It is the sneer at every thing like true generous principle, the laugh at the high moral, the complacency in the low commercial, the assertion of the paramount importance of mere considerations of lucre over all the laws of humanity, that forms the bad feature in the case of these holy Liberals. When we find people, in a tone of profound piety, putting forth the purely commercial principle of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, as an inviolable law of the Great Parent of the Universe, the infringement of which, even to avert the deepest suffering from our fellows, is an impious rebellion against His will; when we are implored not to do evil, that good may come, (the evil being a want of sweetness in our tea, and the good, the preserving from slavery and degradation a large number of our race;) when we are exhorted to deal freely in slave produce, for the sake of promoting “peace and good-will among all mankind;” then, I say, that this servile liberality, this Evangelical cupidity, this Christianity of the ’Change, is beyond all expression detestable, and more worthy of the shafts of Voltaire’s satire than the Christianity of the Inquisition. The present measure will probably cause a greater amount of suffering in the course of a few years, than the Inquisition did during the whole period of its existence.

15The above conversation, though with no pretensions to exact accuracy in the expressions, is strictly founded on fact.

16Hansard’s Debates, vol. xx. New Series, p. 731. The speech is said, in a note on p. 727, to have been “inserted with the permission and approbation of Mr. Secretary Peel.”

17The expression which was chiefly insisted on in that discussion, and which he strenuously laboured to disprove, was that in which he was reported to have said, that in 1825 he gave it as his opinion to Lord Liverpool that “something ought to be done for the Catholics.” He strongly denied having ever used those words, and as indeed they are not found in many of the reports of his speech, there would not appear to be sufficient evidence that he did so. But it was labour lost to disprove the point, for this sentence after all was by no means so clear or explicit as that which stands in his own revised report. He might have stated that something ought to be done for the Catholics, without its being thereby evident, that by that something he meant the measure of Catholic Emancipation. Some other course might have “suggested itself to his mind,” as a solution of the difficulty. But when he tells us in so many words, that the course which then suggested itself to his mind was the very same which he afterwards pursued in proposing the measure of Catholic Emancipation, no room for question is left; this is a precise and explicit statement to which we do not see how two meanings can well be given. When such a statement stands in his own corrected report, it was worse than idle so strenuously to disclaim the weaker one.

18Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 6, Art. 30. Pauthier’s Translation.

19This chronology might seem difficult to conciliate with the life of an individual, but it must be remembered that the Robert Peel never dies. There are always in the world not only one, but many representatives of the character.

20Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 7, Art. 37. Pauthier’s Translation.

21Talleyrand is a good example.

22Catholic Bill, Factory Bill, Corn Bill.

23That this opposition to Canning was characterised by a peculiar virulence on the part of some of its members, appears to be indisputable, inasmuch as it seems to be the received opinion of those best acquainted with Canning, that it had a considerable share in causing his death. Thus, not to mention other testimonies, his widow, when Huskisson subsequently joined some of these politicians in office, writes to him to reproach him with having joined her husband’s murderers. Peel himself at the time did not escape from severe blame on account of it, and one of his relatives, Mr Dawson, is mentioned as one of the most notable of the culprits.

24Translated by Shelley:“Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind:The foul cubs like the parents are.”

24Translated by Shelley:

“Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind:The foul cubs like the parents are.”

Transcriber’s Note:Obvious printer errors corrected silently.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

Back to Index Next