13th of October, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Sir James Graham:—“The accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming. I foresee the necessity that may be impressed upon us, at an early period, of considering whether there is not that well-grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means of relief which the exercise of the prerogative or legislation might afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports, or the stoppage of distilleries. The removal of impediments to import is the only effectual remedy.” This was a clear advance towards the adoption of Free Trade in corn, which Sir Robert had previously resisted, and which he still postponed for several months. On the 31st of October we find a meeting at Dublin representing to the Lord Lieutenant that it had ascertained beyond a doubt that famine, and consequent pestilence, were imminent, unless the Government should take the most prompt measures to provide for the people by the distribution of food. It was therefore requested that the ports of Ireland should be opened for the importation of Indian corn, rice, and other articles of consumption. Sir Robert Peel was already convinced that it was impossible, under existing circumstances, to maintain restrictions on the free import of grain; but he still hung back from taking a different course, deterred, probably, by a doubt as to how far he could obtain a majority in Parliament.
His hesitation in this respect, which was now beginning to be denounced in Ireland in very emphatic terms, appeared to Lord John Russell to offer a fitting opportunity for effecting the restoration of the Whigs to office. By this time, Lord Melbourne had almost retired from public life, and everybody knew that, if the Liberals again came into power, the Premiership would fall to the most able, energetic, and resolute of Melbourne’s lieutenants. Lord John Russell saw a great career before him, and on the 22nd of November he addressed a letter from Edinburgh to the electors of the City of London. It will be recollected that the Whig statesman, shortly before the destruction of the Melbourne Cabinet, had been in favour of a fixed, though a low, duty on corn, while his great rival, Sir Robert Peel, had adopted what was known as the Sliding Scale. The views of both leaders had altered since those days. Each had abandoned his hobby; but Lord John Russell was the first to proclaim unequivocally that he was a convert to the views of Mr. Cobden. In his Edinburgh letter, he wrote:—“It is no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty. In 1841, the Free Trade party would have agreed to a duty of 8s. per quarter on wheat, and after a lapse of years this duty might have been further reduced, and ultimately abolished. But the imposition of any duty at present, without a provision for its extinction within a short period, would but prolong a contest already sufficiently fruitful of animosity and discontent. Let us, then, unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division amongst classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.”
The hesitation of Sir Robert Peel, though unfortunate both for himself and the country, was scarcely avoidable under the circumstances. He would have thrown open the ports at once by an Order in Council; but several of his colleagues in the Government were opposed to such a proceeding, and even to the adoption of any Free Trade policy whatever. The publication of Lord John Russell’s letter, however, brought matters to a crisis. It is true that by this time most of the objecting members of the Administration had come round to the Premier’s view; but Peel felt that he could not place himself in the position of adopting a policy which his rival had so openly espoused. Convinced of his inability, at that time, to carry out the Free Trade ideas which he nevertheless saw to be inevitable. Sir Robert went to Osborne on the 5th of December, 1845, and placed his resignation in the hands of her Majesty. “I trust,” says the Conservative Minister in his Memoirs, “that I satisfied the Queen that I was influenced by considerations of the public interest, and not by fear of responsibility or of reproach, in humbly tendering my resignation of office. Her Majesty was pleased to accept it, with marks of confidence and approbation which, however gratifying, made it a very painful act to replace in her Majesty’s hands the trust she had confided in me.” The Queen then requested Lord John Russell to form a Government; but, being still in Edinburgh, it was the 11th of December before that statesman could reach the south. He at once undertook the task assigned to him; but, as some of his political friends were disinclined to support the general lines of policy on which he desired to enter, or were unable to agree among themselves, the attempt ended in failure. Another difficulty resulted from the refusal of Sir Robert Peel to give an unconditional promise that he would support a measure for the total and immediate abolition of the Corn Laws, though he was willing to assure Lord John that he and his friends would abstain from any factious opposition.
On the 20th of December, Lord John Russell announced to her Majesty that he was unable to form an Administration, and Sir Robert Peel was immediately recalled to the Royal presence at Windsor Castle. On entering the room, the Queen said to him very graciously, “So far from taking leave of you, Sir Robert, I must require you to withdraw your resignation.” She added that her late Minister might naturally require time for reflection, and for communication with his colleagues, before he gave a decisive answer. “I humbly advised her Majesty,” writes Sir Robert Peel, “to permit me to decide at once upon the resumption of office, and to enable me to announce to my late colleagues, on my return to London, that I had not hesitated to reaccept the appointment of First Minister.” He goes on to state that the Queen was pleased cordially to approve of this suggestion, and he reached London on the evening of the 20th, once more invested with the functions of Prime Minister.
THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MINISTRY OF RENUNCIATION.
The Times Reveals a Secret of State—Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mrs. Norton and the Times—A Court Scandal—Peel’s Resignation—Lord John Russell’s Failure to Form a Ministry—Peel Resumes Office—The Ministry and the Queen—The Duke of Wellington and Peel—Disintegration of the Tory Party—Croker’s Correspondence with Wellington—Peel’s Instructions to the Quarterly Review—A. Betrayed Editor—Peel and the Princess Lieven—Guizot’s Defence of Peel—The Queen’s Conduct in the Great Crisis—How she Strengthened the Position of the Crown—Her Popular Sympathies—Why Peel Changed his Policy—The Potato Rot—Impending Famine—Distress in England—The Campaign of the Free Traders—Scenes at their Meetings—The Protectionist Agitation and the Agricultural Labourers—Sufferings of the Poor—The Duke of Norfolk’s Curry Powder—Meeting at Wootton Bassett—The Queen and the Sufferers.
It was on the 4th of December, 1845, that the Times startled the world by its celebrated leading article, beginning “The doom of the Corn Laws is sealed.” This was the very earliest disclosure of that great act of political renunciation which impending famine in Ireland had forced on Sir Robert Peel. How the Times came to discover, on the 4th of December, that the Cabinet had broken up on the previous day, through the obstinacy of Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch, was for a long time a political mystery. It inspired what Lord Beaconsfield once called “the babble of the boudoirs,” and the tittle-tattle of many clubs. It was whispered that one very near the Royal person had divulged this profound secret of State, a knowledge of which would have been worth a king’s ransom on the Corn Exchange. Such surmises were entirely wrong. So far as the Court knew, or guessed at the secret, it was kept inviolate. It was understood that Mr. Sidney Herbert, the youngest of Sir Robert Peel’s colleagues, on the evening of the 3rd of December conveyed to Mrs. Norton (afterwards Lady Stirling Maxwell, of Keir) an idea of what had happened in the Cabinet, and that she, in turn, carried her gleanings from Mr. Herbert’s conversation to Mr. Delane, the editor of the Times. The affair, it may be said in passing, has furnished Mr. George Meredith with a striking incident in his story, “Diana of the Crossways,” for the heroine of that romance has much in common with the gifted intrigante, “whose bridal wreath was twined with weeds of strife.” A more prosaic explanation, however, is supplied by Mr. Greville. He asserts that Lord Aberdeen gave Mr. Delane a hint that the Corn Law was doomed, his