find her descending from her elevation, to mix in the disputes of schoolmen, and the wrangling of theologians, who, while they seek, for their own purposes, to torture their countrymen, endanger the security of their common country."

The Catholic claims were defeated by a majority of twentyfour; and, instead of emancipation, the Irish obtained a renewal of the Insurrection Act, which, even the leaders of the liberal party confessed to be a melancholy necessity. Mr. Peel's services did not long remain unrewarded by the advocates of Protestant ascendancy. Soon after the debate, it was arranged that Mr. Abbott, the Speaker of the House of Commons, should be created a peer. His seat for the University of Oxford was thus vacated, and it was known that Mr. Canning had looked long and anxiously to the honour of this representation; but Lord Eldon, Lord Stowell, and some others, considered it to be an object of great importance, that the representative of the University should be anti-Catholic, and their choice naturally fell upon Mr. Peel. Having got the first intelligence of the completion of the arrangements for Mr. Abbott's promotion, they sent down an express, communicating the intelligence, to some of the most influential persons in Christ Church. The communication was accompanied with such recommendations and counsels, that, by the middle of the following day, that great college had been effectually enlisted in Mr. Peel's favour; and when, in the afternoon, Mr. Canning's friends began their canvass for him, they had the mortification to find the election virtually settled.

From the time of his election for Oxford, Mr. Peel showed an anxiety to bring his connection with Ireland to an end; he introduced, indeed, some few administrative reforms in the constabulary and the grand-jury system, and he made some honourable exertions to alleviate the ravages of fever and famine in that country; but he became aware too late of his

having identified himself with a faction, which, in all the changes of time and circumstances, had forgotten nothing, and had learned nothing. He could not guide his own party; he could not win his opponents; he was exposed to the chance of being distrusted on one side, and detested on the other; and so he resigned office, having learned one lesson during its tenure, that through his whole political life, "Ireland would be his principal difficulty."

CHAPTER VII.

MR. PEEL AND THE CURRENCY BILL.

WHEN Mr. Peel returned to England, the three great questions of Cash, Corn, and Catholics, engrossed the attention of the country. Of these, the first was the most pressing; and it was a striking proof of the high reputation he had won, that he was selected to be the chairman of the committee appointed to investigate the state of the Bank and the Currency. The labours of this committee led to the resumption of cash-payments; but in order to have a right understanding of the subject, it is necessary to consider the circumstances under which these payments were suspended.

In February, 1793, the English government, then administered by Mr. Pitt, declared war against France, and subsidized Austria, Prussia, and Spain, to invade that country, in concert with an English army, under the Duke of York. Some prospects of success were offered at the opening of the campaign, but before the close of the year, the French people had risen en masse, and their enthusiastic armies had driven the Austrians across the Rhine, compelled the Prussians to retire to Mentz, and forced the English to raise the siege of Dunkirk. In the following year, the French not only defended their own provinces, but conquered the Austrian Netherlands, the provinces of Holland, and several valuable districts on the Rhine, in Spain, Savoy, and Italy: "in seventeen months they had won twenty-seven pitched battles, besides an innumerable number of inferior actions, in which they had slain 80,000 of their enemies, made 90,000 prisoners,

and captured 3,800 pieces of cannon." Many of the European powers were induced, by these losses, to secede from the confederacy; the Duke of Tuscany was the first to withdraw, and his example was followed by the rulers of Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Swiss Cantons. Prussia acted with equal meanness and treachery, having first taken the English subsidy, and then made peace with France. The war, which had been at first rather popular in England, became very much the contrary: petitions for peace were presented to parliament, from the cities of London, Norwich, York, and other places; and great popular discontent was created by the dearness of provisions, and commercial depression; both of which were aggravated by the continuance of hostilities. Pitt met these dangers by increased subsidies to our remaining allies, particularly Austria, which were raised by loans; and on the faith of these loans, he solicited, and obtained, large advances from the Bank of England. In the course of the year 1796, the directors became alarmed at the rapid and increasing demands made upon them by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; they remonstrated with him on the subject, and the minister became convinced that it was necessary to stop either the war or the bank. At first he chose the former alternative, and sent Lord Malmesbury to Paris, to commence negociations with the French Directory, hoping that the recent successes of the Archduke Charles over Marshal Jourdan, might render the French inclined to peace; but the victorious career of Napoleon in Italy more than atoned for the defeat of Jourdan; the French Directory refused to listen to the preliminaries proposed, and Lord Malmesbury was commanded to quit Paris in forty-eight hours.

Scarcely had he returned, when the dread of an invasion, by causing a great and sudden demand for specie, still further diminished the resources of the Bank. On the 6th of February, 1797, when Mr. Pitt applied for a further advance

of a million and a half, as a loan to Ireland, the directors informed him, that if they complied with his request, they would be compelled to close their doors. The descent of a small body of French in Wales, and Hoche's abortive attempt to invade Ireland, produced such a panic, that a general run was made on the provincial banks, and several of them failed. This, of course, increased the alarm; demands for cash were poured into the Bank of England from all quarters; and on the evening of Saturday, the 25th of February, the directors found that they had only £1,272,000 of cash and bullion in their coffers; a sum quite inadequate to meet the run which might reasonably be expected on the following Monday. In this emergency, a council was hastily summoned on Sunday morning, and, in the course of the day, an order was issued, prohibiting the directors from paying their notes in cash, until the sense of parliament had been taken on the subject. On Monday, the occurrence was communicated to parliament in a royal message, and on the next day, after violent debates, a committee was appointed, by ballot, to investigate the state of the Bank; at the same time, the directors were authorized to issue one-pound notes, five pounds having been previously, as now, their lowest limits. It appeared, that the amount of notes in circulation, at the time of the restriction, was £10,266,561, but that the Bank possessed a clear surplus over all its liabilities of £2,826,890, exclusive of a debt from government, of £11,666,800. The drain of cash was ascribed to the prevalence of alarm; and as this alarm might prevent the Bank from making such advances of cash as the exigencies of the public service might require, it was recommended that the restriction of cash payments might be continued under such limitations as might seem expedient to parliament. No one, at the time, appears to have regarded the measure as anything more than a temporary expedient: one of the directors, in his place in parliament, declared that the payments

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