The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1865-05-26
A Pen and Ink Portrait of Sir Robert
Peel.

When less than year ago, we heard
that Lord Palmerston had assigned to Sir
Robert Peel the virtual government of
ireland, we endeavored to describe the
character of our new ruler as accurately as
his previous career had enabled us to
judge of it. If we remember rightly, we
considered that he was bigoted, laundering,
and rather good natured.
In his character, with many defects,
there was, we thought, sort of chival-
rous generosity. Experience has, we need
not say, given us some reason to modify
that opinion. The bigotry was pretty
good guess. Sir Robert has displayed
himself as a rampant abusive bigot. He
came over here with professions of con-
ciliation on bis lips, and he has allied
himself to the bitterest faction in Ireland.
The sclfconceited champion of those
mythical individuals the Protestants of
Spain, has given proof of the intolerance
of his nature by allying himself with the
Orangemen of the North, and cut roaring
Mons. Meg for their ediGcation. As for
his good nature-God helprs. Of all the
delusion that ever beset those who under
took to judge of political character, there
was none so utter and complete, none so
.lamentably dispelled, as that which inves-
ted the Irish Chief Secretary with the at
tribute of generosity. Grind the faces of
the poor, has been tho motto of his admin
istration. Let them rot, or starve; let
them SILVER in the cold, or languish of
hunger; let them suffer as they will, but
let them not annoy with their inharmoni-
GUS cries in the ears of her Majesty's Gov
eminent. Sir Robert took up the
Queens Colleges. They were Of his
fathers manufacture, aud he thought
they reflected credit upon him. To them
he gave money, and he begged for more,
because In doing so he thought he was do
ing something in his fathers line, and
would therefore be somehow mistaken for
q statesman of the same calibre. He be-
came an ardent advocate for the landlord
class, because in SO doing he gratifed his
own sympathies, which are as strongly
adverse to the interest of the masses as the
worst specimens of the worst times of
landlordism in this country could produce
Even the rather low quality of physical
courage does not appear to be among the
attributes of the Right Honorable Baro-
net, and in this respect, more than any
other, he has deceived those who have at
tempted to form an estimate of his charac-
ter. Such, at least, is the conclusion
drawn from the fact that he could wan
tonly offer an insult and neither apologize
for it or to defend it. In almost every
thing Except laundering bigotry) Sir
Robert Peel has disappointed popular ex-
pectation, and has proved himself, if not
better, at least very different from the in
dividual it had conceived. In nothing,
however, is the difference more remarka-
BILE than in our being compelled to pro-
nounce Sir Robert Peel an emineDtly con-
sistent person. Consistency he carries to
a degree almost unprecedented. TO pre-
serve it he has made sacrifices of the most
extraordinary haracter-among them the
health, and even the lives of the Irish
people; and, must we write it ? the APP
pearance, at least, of candor and straight
torwardness which ought to distinguish q
statesman dealing with questions of life
or ath.-Corh Examiner.