to recognizances to keep the peace toward all his majesty's
subjects; and so ended one of the few personal squabbles in which Mr.
Peel had ever been engaged. For six years he held the office of chief
secretary to the lord-lieutenant, at a time when the government was
conducted upon what might be called "anti-conciliation principles."
The opposite course was commenced by Mr. Peel's immediate successor,
Mr. Charles Grant, now Lord Glenelg.

That a chief secretary so circumstanced, struggling to sustain extreme
Orangeism in its dying agonies, should have been called upon to
encounter great toil and anxiety is a truth too obvious to need
illustration. That in these straits Mr. Peel acquitted himself with
infinite address was as readily acknowledged at that time as it has
ever been even in the zenith of his fame. He held office in that
country under three successive viceroys, the Duke of Richmond, Earl
Whitworth, and Earl Talbot, all of whom have long since passed away
from this life, their names and their deeds long forgotten. But the
history of their chief secretary happens not to have been composed
of such perishable materials, and we now approach one of the most
memorable passages of his eventful career. He was chairman of the
great bullion committee; but before he engaged in that stupendous task
he had resigned the chief secretaryship of Ireland. As a consequence
of the report of that committee, he took charge of and introduced the
bill for authorizing a return to cash payments which bears his name,
and which measure received the sanction of parliament in the year
1819. That measure brought upon Mr. Peel no slight or temporary odium.
The first Sir Robert Peel was then alive, and altogether differed from
his son as to the tendency of his measure. It was roundly asserted at
the time, and very faintly denied, that it rendered that gentleman a
more wealthy man, by something like half a million sterling, than he
had previously been. The deceased statesman, however, must, in common
justice, be acquitted of any sinister purpose.

This narrative now reaches the year 1820, when we have to relate the
only domestic event in the history of Sir Robert Peel which requires
notice. On the 8th of June, being then in the 33d year of his age,
he married Julia, daughter of General Sir John Floyd, who had then
attained the age of 25.

Two years afterward there was a lull in public affairs, which gave
somewhat the appearance of tranquilli