V
The fact is that even as early as 1821, when he answered a speech from Mr. Plunkett, which he once told me was the finest he ever heard, Mr. Peel felt that the ground on which he had hitherto stood was shifting from under him; that just as it had been impracticable to carry what was called “Catholic emancipation” when he entered public life, so it was becoming more and more impracticable to resist its being carried as time advanced.
Such an impression naturally became stronger and stronger as he saw distinguished converts, from Mr. Wellesley Pole, in 1812, down to Mr. Brownlow, in 1825, going over to his opponents, whereas not a single convert was made to the views he advocated. He might still think that the hope of those who imagined that the Irish Catholics, once admitted to Parliament, would rest satisfied with that triumph, was chimerical: he might still think that the Irish Catholics would, as a matter of course, insist upon equality in all respects with the Protestants: he might still foresee that this equality, the Catholics being the majority, would lead to superiority over the Protestants: he might still believe that the Protestants, accustomed to domination, and supported by property and rank, would not submit tranquilly to numbers: he might contemplate the impossibility of maintaining a Protestant Church establishment, absorbing all the revenue accorded to religious purposes, with a Catholic representation which would feel galled and humiliated by such a preference; and he might also recognise the probability that the English Protestant clergy would take part with the Irish Protestant clergy, and denounce as an atrocious robbery what might be demanded as a simple act of justice: and yet, retaining all his former convictions against the measure he was called upon to agree to, he might feel that prolonged opposition would only serve to protract a useless struggle, and be more likely to increase the evils he foresaw than to prevent them. Such a consideration could not but deeply affect his mind, and breathe over his conduct an air of hesitation and doubt.
It is not surprising, therefore, that any one who reviews his conduct attentively during the five or six years that preceded Lord Liverpool’s retirement should find evident traces of this state of thought. On one occasion he says: “No result of this debate can give me unqualified satisfaction.” On another: “If I were perfectly satisfied that concession would lead to perfect peace and harmony, if I thought it would put an end to animosities, the existence of which all must lament, I would not oppose the measure on a mere theory of the constitution.” Just previous to the Duke of York’s celebrated declaration that, “whatever might be his situation in life, so help him God he should oppose the grant of political power to Roman Catholics,” Peel says, on the third reading of the Catholic Relief Bill, which had been carried in the House of Commons by a majority of twenty-one, that he should record, perhaps for the last time, his vote against the concessions that it granted.
This phrase, “for the last time,” much commented on at the time, might have alluded to the possibility of the measure then under discussion being carried; and it was generally believed that Mr. Peel meditated at this time quitting office, and even Parliament, in order not to prevent Lord Liverpool from dealing with a matter on which his own opinions differed from those to which he thought it likely that the Government would have to listen.
When, however, after the death of the Duke of York, and the illness of Lord Liverpool, the question was whether he should desert or hold fast to a cause which had lost its most powerful supporters; whether he should abandon those with whom he had hitherto acted at the moment when victory seemed almost certain to crown their opponents, or still range himself under their banner, there was hardly a choice for an honourable man, and he spoke as follows:
“The influence of some great names has been recently lost to the cause which I support, but I have never adopted my opinions either from deference to high station, or that which might more fairly be expected to impress me—high ability. Keen as the feelings of regret must be with which the loss of those associates in feeling is recollected, it is still a matter of consolation to me that I have now the opportunity of showing my attachment to those tenets which I formerly espoused, and of showing that if my opinions are unpopular I stand by them still, when the influence and authority which might have given them currency is gone, and when I believe it is impossible that in the mind of any human being I can be suspected of pursuing my principles with any view to favour or personal aggrandizement.”