to victory; but they felt that there were no real sympathies between themselves and him. While he was boldly advancing with the spirit of the age, they were lagging behind, gloomily regarding his manifestation of Liberal principles, in which they did not participate, and lingering on those traditions of the past which they saw that he had entirely forsaken. [Sidenote: PEEL'S CONVERSION TO FREE TRADE.] At length, ten years after the Reform Bill, the Whig Government was overthrown, and Peel became Minister. At this time the great bulk of his supporters coveted power principally for the sake of Protection. They believed that it was the duty, the inclination, and the intention of Peel to maintain the Corn Laws, and they had a right to think so. He had been the vigorous and ingenious advocate of the protective system, not, however, without some qualifications and reservations, which, though they were enough to excite the jealousy and mistrust of the most suspicious, were still insufficient to neutralise the effect of his general professions. It is almost impossible to discover what the process was by which he was gradually led to embrace the whole doctrine of Free Trade. We cannot distinguish what effect was made upon his mind by the reasoning, and what by the organisation and agitation, of the Anti-Corn Law League. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to sum up periodically the exact state of Peel's opinions upon commercial and fiscal questions, and to know how he combined them with other political as well as party considerations, which he was obliged constantly to keep in view. No man but himself could explain and vindicate the whole course of his conduct. It may safely be assumed that when he began to reorganise the Conservative party, he did not contemplate a repeal of the Corn Laws, and that it was by a severely inductive process of study and meditation that he was gradually led to the conception and elaboration of the commercial system which the last years of his life were spent in carrying out. The modification, and possibly the ultimate repeal, of the Corn Laws must have formed a part of that system, but what he hoped and intended probably was to bring round the minds of his party by degrees to the doctrines of Free Trade, and to conquer their repugnance to a great alteration of the Corn Laws, both by showing the imprudence of endeavouring to maintain them, and by the gradual development of those countervailing advantages with which Free Trade was fraught. That, I believe, was his secret desire, hope, and expectation; and if the Irish famine had not deranged his plans and precipitated his measures, if more time had been afforded him, it is not impossible that his projects might have been realised. He has been bitterly accused of deceiving and betraying his party, of 'close designs, and crooked counsels,' and there is no term of reproach and invective which rage and fear, mortification and resentment, have not heaped upon him.