English
Catholics such privileges as were already possessed by Catholics in
Ireland, and he fully approved of a letter written on behalf of the
Cabinet to the Lord-Lieutenant urging 'that a disposition should be
manifested to admit the Roman Catholics of Ireland to a fair
proportion of the emoluments and honours to which they are eligible by
law,' but without issuing patents of precedence.[36]

On matters unconnected with the Catholic question his administration
was skilful and, on the whole, enlightened; and in 1823 he introduced
the first of a series of important measures diminishing the enormous
number of capital offences that disgraced the English criminal code,
and, at the same time, doing much to simplify and consolidate that
code. In this, as in most respects, there was little original in his
legislation. He followed, at some distance, in the steps of Romilly
and Mackintosh, and he left very much to be done, which was chiefly
accomplished during the Whig ascendancy that followed the Reform Bill
of 1832. It appears, from some remarkable letters in this volume,
that, before Peel took up the question of criminal reform, George IV.
was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men
for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his
Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes
found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the
aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to
save two culprits from the gallows; and, in another case, he
threatened to resign his office if the King persisted in commuting the
sentence of a youth who had been found guilty of uttering forged
notes.[37] But Peel had at least the merit of recognising an
intolerable abuse, and his legislation on the subject was skilfully
framed and still more skilfully introduced and carried. In his
patronage in this, as in later periods of his life, he cared much more
than most English Ministers for the interests of science, literature,
and art. He was by no means indifferent to the opportunities his
position gave him of advancing his own family and friends; but he
never, in his English patronage, forgot the character of those whom he
recommended for promotion, and he brought forward or assisted many men
of ability and learning with whom he had no connection and no
political sympathy. The letters in this volume between Peel and his
very intimate Oxford friend Dr. Lloyd