set speech, when, at the commencement of the session of 1810, he seconded the address in reply to the King’s speech.  Thenceforward for nineteen years a more highflying Tory than Mr. Peel was not to be found within the walls of parliament.  Lord Eldon applauded him as a young and valiant champion of those abuses in the state which were then fondly called “the institutions of the country.”  Lord Sidmouth regarded him as the rightful political heir, and even the Duke of Cumberland patronized Mr. Peel.  He further became the favorite eleve of Mr. Perceval, the first lord of the treasury, and entered office as under-secretary for the home department.  He continued in the home department for two years, not often speaking in parliament, but rather qualifying himself for those prodigious labors in debate, in council, and in office, which it has since been his lot to encounter and perform.

In May, 1812, Mr. Perceval fell by the hand of an assassin, and the composition of the ministry necessarily underwent a great change.  The result, so far as Mr. Peel was concerned, was, that he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.  Mr. Peel had only reached his 26th year when, in the month of September, 1812, the duties of that anxious and laborious position were entrusted to his hands.  The legislative union was then but lately consummated, and the demand for Catholic emancipation had given rise to an agitation of only very recent date.  But, in proportion to its novelty, so was its vigor.  Mr. Peel was, therefore, as the representative of the old tory Protestant school, called upon to encounter a storm of unpopularity, such as not even an Irish secretary has ever been exposed to.  The late Mr. O’Connell in various forms poured upon Mr. Peel a torrent of invective which went beyond even his extraordinary performances in the science of scolding.  At length he received from Mr. Peel a hostile message.  Negotiations went on for three or four days, when Mr. O’Connell was taken into custody and bound over to keep the peace toward all his fellow-subjects in Ireland.  Mr. Peel and his friend immediately went to England, and subsequently proceeded to the continent.  Mr. O’Connell followed them to London, but the police were active enough to bring him before the chief justice, when he entered into recognizances to keep the peace toward all his majesty’s subjects; and so ended one of the few personal squabbles in which Mr. Peel had ever been engaged.  For six years he held the office of chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant, at a time when the government was conducted upon what might be called “anti-conciliation principles.”  The opposite course was commenced by Mr. Peel’s immediate successor, Mr. Charles Grant, now Lord Glenelg.