en and Quair;
some crops are grown, but most of the land is devoted to sheep grazing; a
little coal is found in the N.; the only towns are Innerleithen (3) and
PEEBLES (5), the county town, engaged in Tweed manufacture. The
county is known also by the name of Tweeddale; its representation in
Parliament is united with that of Selkirk.

PEEL (4), a fishing town and holiday resort on the W. coast of the
Isle of Man, 12 m. NW. of Douglas; it is noted for its castle.

PEEL, SIR ROBERT, English statesman, born near Bury, Lancashire, the
son of a wealthy cotton-spinner, to whose large fortune and baronetcy he
succeeded; graduated at Oxford in 1808, and next year entered Parliament
as Tory member for Cashel; he afterwards sat for his own university, and
after 1832 for Tamworth; he was appointed Under-Secretary for the
Colonies in 1811. and from 1812 till 1818 was Secretary for Ireland; in
1822 he became Home Secretary, but seceded from the Government when
Canning became Premier in 1827; the question at issue was Catholic
Emancipation, and it was characteristic of Peel that in the Government
which succeeded Canning's he had the courage, having changed his
opinions, to introduce the measure which removed the disabilities;
opposed to Reform he became leader of the Conservative opposition in the
Parliament of 1833; called to the Premiership in 1834 he could not
maintain his administration, and it was not till 1841 that the victory of
protection over the free-trade agitation gave him a stable majority in
the Commons; his first measure was a modification of the corn laws on
protectionist principles, 1842; then followed the 7d. income-tax and
general tariff revision; in 1845 the agitation for free-trade in corn was
brought to a crisis by the Irish potato famine; Peel yielded, and next
year carried the final repeal of the corn laws; his "conversion" split
the Tory party and he retired from office, becoming a supporter of the
Whig ministry in its economical and ecclesiastical policy; he was a
master of finance, an easy speaker, slow to form but conscientious to act
upon his convictions, a man of the highest character; his death was the
result of a fall from horseback (1788-1850).

PEEL TOWERS, the name given to fortresses of the moss-troopers on
the Scottish border.

PEELE, GEORGE, dramatist, of the Elizabethan period, born in London;
author of "Arraignment of Paris" and "David and Bathsabe," full of
passages of poetic beaut