One of Sir Robert Peel’s biographers, evidently a great admirer of his, says of him that he was a freetrader in principle long before 1845[69]; whilst his enemies assert, that having been placed by the Tory party at the head of a Protectionist Government, he betrayed that party and suddenly threw himself into the arms of the Corn Law League.  Neither of these views appears to be quite correct.  The common, and it would seem, the more accurate opinion about him is, that he was a politician by profession—­a man of expediency—­and that on the question of the Corn Laws he did no more than he had previously done with regard to Catholic emancipation,—­followed the current of public opinion, which he always watched with the most anxious care,—­and turning round, carried through Parliament a measure which he had long and strenuously opposed.  There was, to be sure, this difference in his conduct with regard to those two great measures, that, whilst up to the time he undertook, in conjunction with the Duke of Wellington, to free the Catholics, he never advocated their claims, on the other hand, he had been twice a party to modifications of the Corn Laws, first in 1828, and secondly in 1842.  In the latter year he, cautiously indeed, but not unsubstantially, legislated in the direction of free trade.

He became First Lord of the Treasury in August, 1841, and soon afterwards brought before the Cabinet the question of the duties on the importation of food, more especially of corn.  He recommended his colleagues to make the revision of those duties a Cabinet question; and he further submitted “a proposal in respect to the extent to which such revision should be carried, and to the details of the new law."[70] A bill founded on his views was passed in the Parliament of 1842, “providing for a material diminution in the amount of the import duties on the several kinds of foreign grain.”  But these changes did not satisfy the Corn Law Leaguers, who sought complete repeal; but they had the effect of alarming the Premier’s Tory supporters, and led to the resignation of one Cabinet Minister—­the Duke of Buckingham.  His partizans endeavoured to obtain from him a guarantee that this Corn Law of 1842 should, as far as he was concerned, be a final measure; but, although he tells us, that he did not then contemplate the necessity for further change, he uniformly refused to fetter either the Government or himself by such an assurance.  Yet, in proposing the introduction of the tariff in 1842, he seems to have foreshadowed future and still more liberal legislation on the subject.  “I know that many gentlemen,” he said, “who are strong advocates for free trade may consider that I have not gone far enough.  I know that.  I believe that on the general principle of freetrade there is now no great difference of opinion; and that all agree in the general rule, that we should purchase in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest.”