Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/112

 forced to give effect to it when he did by the inexorable necessities of famine. He did not make a volte face for the sake of place and power. But notwithstanding all that can be urged in his justification, he shattered his party. The Tories had a majority of eighty in the general election of 1841; they never secured a similar victory till 1874. They had short tenures of office in 1852, and again in 1858-9, and in 1866-8; but on each occasion they had to govern as best they could with a minority in the House of Commons. They were in the wilderness thirty-tree years, and never regained the Canaan of politicians, except by the aid of the new electorate called into existence by the Reform Bill of 1867.

When Peel went out of office he requested the Queen, as a personal favor to himself, never to ask him to form a Government again. He was not defeated in his great measure; his majority was ninety-seven in the House of Commons, and forty-seven in the House of Lords. But the day on which the Corn Bill passed its third reading in the Lords, the Ministry were defeated in the Commons on a Protection of Life in Ireland Bill, introduced on account of an outbreak of midnight murders and murderous attacks, such as are now known by the name of "moonlighting."

For modesty, dignity, simplicity, and sincerity, Peel's figure stands out conspicuous for greatness among the statesmen of this century. Cobden said of him that he had lost office and saved his country.

His other great achievement was that of reorganizing and simplifying the fiscal arrangements of the country. It was this that first so highly recommended him to the Queen and Prince. They were good economists in their own private affairs, and wished for good order in national revenue and expenditure also.