ABSTRACT
Born in February 1788, Peel was now in his 54th year. The son of the Eobert Peel famous for his munificent subscription to Pitt's Voluntary Contribution of 1798, he had all the advantages which in every station, but more particularly in a political station, attend the possession of riches. After a distinguished career at Harrow, and at Oxford, where he obtained a place in the first class in the two schools of classics and mathematics, he began his political career as member for Cashel in 1809, and his official career, in the following year, when he was appointed to the post of under-secretary of state for the colonies; from which he was promoted, by Liverpool, in 1812, to that of secretary for Ireland. In 1817 he was returned a member for the university of Oxford. His next step on the ladder of promotion placed him in the high position of secretary of state for the home department, at the age of thirty-three, and he held this post from the time when Sidmouth re-
tired in 1822, until the dissolution of the Liverpool administration in 1827. The reasons that prevented him joining Canning have been before stated ; 1 and the death of Canning left him facile princeps in the house of commons. In the Wellington administration he had held, again, the post of secretary of state for the home department. Placed, by the advice of the duke of Wellington in the supreme post, after the dismissal of Melbourne by the king in 1834, he had held the post of chancellor of the exchequer with that of first lord of the treasury in a short administration from December 10 to April 8 following; and when in 1839, on the resignation of the Melbourne ministry in consequence of their defeat on the Jamaica question, he had again received the command of the Queen to form an administration, he had found himself unable to do so in consequence of difficulties about the ladies of the bedchamber. During the long period that had passed since he first entered the house of commons, his reputation for mastery of details, sound practical sense and judgment, and financial ability had continued to increase, and it was now such as indubitably to mark him as the man to set matters right.
