The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-27 00:00:00

observed, were

this is 100 bad, Foll

•ed by his o

,onent, as the case was call

" Not at all—why didn't you let it stand over, as I
asked you ?"

4. Oh-y

would have done just the same then as you

have now."
" I don't knoif that," replied Sir William Follett, with
a significant style. " But why wont your people be more
careful?" And then, turning to his junior, said—" Now
for the Privy Council !" And all this with such proyok-
-Blackwood.

ing, easy, smiling nonchalance !

PROGRESS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL

(From the Church of England Review.)
It may seem strange to the mind of Sir. Robert Peel

that his plans are so continually frustrated, and his policy
of expediency so constantly recoils upon himself, and
that, no sooner has he met one giant difficulty, and ap.
parently quieted it, than it assumes another head, an
shows him that he has greater and greater obstacle.
overcome ere he can effectually silence and allay the corn
motion it produces. And if it does at times astonish
him, we are at a loss to conceive that a mind so gifted as
his own undoubtedly is does not an once perceive one
chief and manifest cause why he fails to satisfy the clash-
ing interests of the country. and brings himself and his
measures into contempt. The fact is, for years past, he
and his colleagues in power have been progressing with-
out any distinctive principle to guide them. Time was
when we could understand men by their measures, and

arrive at their intentions by their actions ; ut that period
seems to have passed entirely away, and the fashion is
altogether changed. Out of office and in opposition, Sir
R. Peel led on an unceasing and persevering attack upon
all and each of the measures of the then Government.
He was then the active partizan and defender of every
existing interest. The Church he strenuously defended
from every assault made upon her, and many an attempt
to invalidate her influence, and to crush her existence for

usefulness, did he nip in the bud by unflinching and un-
compromising adhesion to her in her hour of peril. No
one could be more loud in his denunciation of the mea-
sures, which were introduced to secure the favour of the
pro-Popery party, and many craftily concocted schemes
to advance their pretensions were put aside simply from
the knowledge that he would certainly use every influence
and strain every nerve to cut it off in detail, should it be
introduced into Parliament, if he perceived himself
unequal to annihilate it by one open and decisiveonslaught.
The promoters of change, and the lovers of discord, alike
trembled at his vigour in defence of the existing institu-
tions of the country : and never bad his talents greater
opportunity of display, than when night after night, ses-
sion after session, he fought the battle of the opposition
on the left hand of the Speaker's chair in the Commons
House of Parliament. Not gradually, but with increas-
ing rapidity, the popularity he had lost, by introducing
the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill, and by refusing
to proceed in a revolutionary course under the name of
reform, returned : from being, perhaps, the most un-
popular man in her Majesty's dominions, if we except the
iron Duke, he became the observed of all observers, and
instead of meeting with insult from the populace of the
metropolis, which he had been accustomed to. upon and
for a short time after the passing of the Reform Bill, his
presence was hailed on every side with acclamations, both
vociferous end hearty. Every class of the peoplelooked
to him as the man who should restore the failing commerce
of the land ; the monied interests bailed him as the only
statesman who could rectify the financial difficulties of his
opponents, which every day grew worse and worse ; the
clergy, thankful for his zeal in their defence, anticipated
from him protection, and security against assault from
within and from without. The agriculturists beheld in
him an imaginary means of securing their capital and of
realising a profit upon their labours, instead of the

positive losses they had been year after year incurring.
In a word, as the confidence in his opponents declined,

so did it i

him. He was " the man of the peo-

pie ;" and as such, as a proof of their belief in his
ty cf purpose, and of his inclination and desire
to prove himself the benefactor of his countr,-, they
threw away all suspicion of him; they forgot, or at least
pardoned, his former tergiversation ; and gave him so
overwhelming a m,jority, as a proof and evidence of their
returned conviction that he would not again deceive
them, as to render any measure he might bring forward
secure from the moment it was proposed, and easy to be
carried in detail. In every particular, if we excet,t the
financial arrangements of tie country, be has f. -fly
disappointed the high expectations he had raised. The
measures his opponents had introduced, and which he
had dereated, now became his o.va ; schemes they shrank
from the responsibility of carrying forward, he took in
hand, and, with imperious command, demanded the co-
operation of his followers, who had adhered to him under
the impression that he would clog the wheel of revolution.
ary motion. At one time threatening them with his re-
solve to resign cffice unless they held to him, and to
throw the country into confusion by the return to office
of a Whig-Radical faction,—at another, casting himself
by the ultraism of his proposed measures, upon the ne-
cessary support (for consistency's sake) of his opponents,
he has strided on and on, making all things bend before
his march, and yielding to his nod of determination.
Every s-ssion since his accession to power he has more and
more shaken off the trammels of the pledges his conduct
in opposition had fastened upon him,—but it remained
till the last to behold the crowning act of desertion of
former principles completed, and it chewed, however much
it was supposed he had deplored the fatal step of 1829, the
supposition was but ideal,—inasmuch as be resolved to
eclipse that undoing of the Protestantism of Great Britain,
by a more decisive and vigorous blow against her princi-
ples. We were not backward in presenting to our readers
and the public how full of danger, how inconsistent with
former pledges, how unworthy of a great and powerful
statesman, was the conduct of the minister, who passed
the Maynooth Endowment Bill with indecent haste
through the Houses of Legislature, refusing to give time
for the expression of the sentiments of the people.--
whose almost united efforts had placed him on the high
position he occupied,—and disregarding the entreaties of