From the sketch now given of the ferment of public opinion, produced by a war between two powerful classes for political predominance in 1846, one thing must be self-evident. In view of the authority and influence of the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, it was fortunate for Sir Robert Peel that the quick and generous sympathies of the Queen, whose tender heart was touched by the sufferings of the poor, were entirely with him all through this trying time. Her Majesty may therefore claim some share in the great work that crowned her Minister’s career with honour--for she strengthened his hands by the confidence she displayed in his judgment, when his oldest friends forsook him. The Queen knew well that it was with no light heart, and for no trivial cause, that Peel abandoned, not the creed--for, like Mr. Huskisson, he had always been a Free Trader in principle[24]--but the policy of levying exceptional duties on foreign corn. Much blame has been cast on Sir Robert Peel for giving up that policy almost immediately after he had won place and power by pledging himself to maintain it. Certainly, after the revelations made in the Croker Papers, it is difficult in some respects to justify his conduct. It is indeed regrettable that those to whom his memory ought to be precious, have not deemed it expedient to explain away the instructions which he gave Mr. Croker, as editor of the _Quarterly_, in September, 1845. M. Guizot[25] has, however, defended Peel from the charges of base tergiversation which, to the annoyance of the Queen, were pressed against him in the fierce and fiery invectives of Mr. Disraeli, and in the passionate but somewhat incoherent harangues of Lord George Bentinck. As the French statesman was on terms of intimacy not only with Peel, but with many of his colleagues, his opinion must be received with respect. According to M. Guizot, all through 1845 Sir Robert Peel was in a condition of painful and “touching perplexity” as to his duty in view of the spread of destitution. This perplexity, M. Guizot contends, was that not of a sordid placeman, but of “a sincere and conscientious mind carried forward in the direction of its own inclination by a great flood of public opinion and passion, and struggling painfully against its adversaries, its friends, and itself.” When the Queen met Sir Robert Peel with a smile on the 20th of December, and said “she was glad to be able to ask him to withdraw his resignation,” she was, according to this theory, really lifting a cloud of gloom from his anxious head, and congratulating him on the ending of that state of suspense in which his troubled mind had been painfully poised. It may be a [Illustration: THE DEPUTATION FROM LONDON AND DUBLIN CORPORATIONS BEFORE THE QUEEN. (_See p. 216._)]