to have excellent reasons for his belief. In Ireland it
generally prevailed, and it exercised an immediate pacifying
influence. Lord Fingall and other Catholic noblemen, in presenting an
address at this time to the King, were able to say 'the whole of
Ireland reposes in profound tranquillity, and the law, without the aid
of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.'
It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed
his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated
this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters before us, however,
conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the
merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it.
Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic
question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once
declared that without his assistance he could not continue the
struggle. Peel was the only Minister in the House of Commons opposed
to the Catholic cause, differing on the question from all his
colleagues in the House. If he had resigned, and if Lord Liverpool had
followed his example, there is good reason to believe that a
Government might have been formed which would have carried the measure
safely and speedily with the securities that had been accepted. Most
unfortunately for the Empire, the 'Protestant' party persuaded Peel to
withdraw his resignation in order to avert this surrender. In the
House of Lords the Duke of York, who was the heir-presumptive to the
throne, stood up and declared his unalterable opposition to the
Catholic claims, 'whatever might be his situation in life, so help him
God,' and the Lords rejected the Bill by a majority of 48.

The conscientious views of George III. obtained some measure of
respect even from those who believed them to be most unfounded; but no
halo of sanctity dignified the scruples of George IV. or of the Duke
of York. The Irish Catholics, exasperated at the present
disappointment of their hopes, and at the prospect of another hostile
King, flung themselves into a furious agitation, and in a few months
all the progress which had been made towards pacifying the country was
undone, while in England Peel had to meet a terrible commercial
crisis. Seventy county banks stopped in less than a week. In dealing
with questions of commerce and currency Peel was always in his
element, and his measures appear to have been wise and skilful. A