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 PEEL PEER 225 iDtroduction of that system of metropolitan police now familiar to every considerable town of Great Britain. In 1817 he was returned to parliament for the university of Oxford; in 1818 he resigned his Irish secretaryship, and as chairman of the bullion committee he intro- duced in 1819 the bill authorizing the return to cash payments which bears his name. It brought upon him no slight odium, and was the first political act in which his father, who still held his seat in parliament and was a stanch supporter of Pitt's currency doctrines, differed from him. In 1822 he succeeded Lord Sid- mouth as home secretary, and during his term of office procured the passage of an important series of acts reforming and remodelling the criminal law. On the dissolution of the Liver- pool ministry in 1827 he retired from office; but on the accession of the tory government of the duke of Wellington in 1828, he resumed the seals of the home department. The agita- tion of the repeal of the penal laws affecting the Roman Catholics had now reached a point which compelled the ministry either to consent to the measure or to resign office ; and in a speech delivered in March, 1829, Mr. Peel, yielding to what he considered the exigencies of the moment, proposed Catholic emancipa- tion. The orthodox tories at once denounced him as an apostate ; and on offering himself to the electors of Oxford university, his seat for which he had resigned on becoming a convert to emancipation, he was defeated. But he was temporarily returned for the borough of West- bury, and in 1830 became one of the members for Tamworth, which constituency he repre- sented until his death. He retired with his colleagues in November, 1830. In the first session of the reformed parliament he found himself at the head of a small party which un- der his guidance was developed into a compact, powerful, and well disciplined opposition. In 1834, on the dissolution of the Melbourne min- istry, he was summoned from Italy to form an administration. For several months he strug- gled against a formidable opposition, but was obliged in April, 1835, to retire. For six years he remained in opposition, having within that time declined to form a cabinet ; and in September, 1841, he became premier as first lord of the treasury, with a large and well or- ganized majority in both houses. His minis- try, formed on protectionist principles, partial- ly adopted free-trade doctrines under the pres sure created by the anti-corn-law league ; and Peel inaugurated in 1842 a more liberal finan- cial policy by removing the duties on certain articles and abating them on breadstuffs and raw materials of manufacture. At the same time an income tax for three years was im- posed, by which the government was enabled to repeal upward of 12,000,000 of indirect taxes. In 1845 this tax was renewed for three years ; and in 1846, in view of the approach of famine in Ireland, the premier carried a to- tal abolition of duties on breadstuffs. This brought upon Sir Robert a large degree of odium among the agricultural classes. A coali- tion of the protectionists and the whigs, the former led by Disraeli and Lord George Ben- tinck, overthrew him on the Irish coercion bill, and on June 29, 1846, he resigned. He spoke for the last time in parliament on June 28, 1850, in opposition to Lord Palmerston's for- eign policy, as exemplified in the Greek ques- tion. On the succeeding day he was thrown from his horse, and died of his injuries after great suffering. He had declined a peerage and the order of the garter, and left in his will a solemn injunction to his children against the acceptance of such honors. He left five sons and two daughters. See Sir Robert Peel, by Guizot (Paris, 1859), and " Sir Robert Peel, a Historical Sketch," by Henry Lord Balling and Bulwer (London, 1874). His sons Sir ROBERT (born May 4, 1822) and FREDERICK (born Oct. 26, 1823) have been prominent as members of parliament and incumbents of various execu- tive offices. The latter was made a privy coun- cillor in 1857 and the former in 1866. PEELE, George, an English dramatist, born in Devonshire about 1553, died about 1598. He graduated at Broadgates hall, now Pembroke college, Oxford, in 1579, subsequently settled in London, and became a writer for the the- atre, an occasional performer, and an intimate associate of Nash, Marlowe, and Greene. Six dramas by him, comprising probably not more than half of his works of this class, have been collected by Mr. Dyce, together with poems and miscellaneous writings (3 vols., 1828-'39). His best play is " The Love of King David and fair Bethsabe, with the Tragedy of Absalom." PEER (Lat. par, equal; Fr. pair), a term originally applied, in the feudal law, to all the vassals of the same lord, because, whatever might be their relative condition, they were all equally his vassals, and bound to render their feudal service in his courts or in war. It is now applied sometimes to those who are impan- elled in an inquest for trial of any person ; for they are not only peers with each other, as hav- ing equal power and an equal duty, but by the common law of England every man is to be tried "by his peers." In the United States this principle has no practical application, as all are equal in law where no one has any legal rank. In England the word is most commonly used to designate a lord of parliament, all of whom are called the " king's peers," not be- cause they are in any sense equal with the king, but because they constitute his highest court, and because, whatever may be the degree of their nobility, all, as nobles, are equal in the discharge of their official duty, as in their votes in parliament, or upon the trial of any person impeached by the commons; and all share alike in all the privileges of the peerage. The different degrees of English nobility are, in the order of precedence, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and baron. The eldest son of the first three is usually called by his father's