most open-minded and greatest statesman." The Queen offered a peerage to Lady Peel after her husband's death, but she declined the honor, acting in accordance with what she knew had been his wishes. The Duke of Wellington, in the tribute he paid to Peel in the House of Lords, spoke with tears streaming down his face; the chief part of his panegyric on his friend and leader was based on his unswerving love of truth. It was this quality, together with his political sagacity, caution, and courage, that had endeared him to the Queen. No Prime Minister has ever had a more remarkable history. The election of 1841 was fought on the Corn Laws, and resulted in the return of Peel with a majority of eighty pledged to Protection. In four years from that time, after a career of brilliant success as a Minister, he repealed the Corn Laws which he had been returned to support, amid the execration of the great bulk of his own party and even that of a considerable number of his former opponents;[1] and yet those who knew him best loved him chiefly for his absolute integrity and love of truth. The explanation lies in the hard logic of facts. Peel and his immediate followers became convinced they were wrong in their protective policy; in ordinary times the only right thing for them to have done would have been to declare their change and its grounds, resign office and appeal to the country. Some of the Peelites, as they were called, took this course, so far as was possible, as private individuals; they declared their change and resigned their seats. Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, was one of these.
- ↑ Lord Melbourne, to whom in 1839 Repeal of the Corn Laws had been "the maddest of all mad projects," and who became a Free Trader, for party purposes, in 1841, spoke of Peel's change of view at a dinner party at the Palace with vehemence which even the presence of a lady, and that lady his Sovereign, could not restrain. "Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act" (Greville, vol. v. p. 359).
