as much to draw the two men together. Knowledge of finance, thorough
understanding and firm grasp of the principles on which a nation's
business must be conducted--perhaps, it may be added, a common origin in
the middle class--these points of resemblance might well have become
points of attraction. But there were other and still higher sympathies
to bring them close. The elder and the younger man were alike earnest,
profoundly earnest; filled with conscience in every movement of their
political and private lives; a good deal too earnest and serious,
perhaps, for most of the parliamentary colleagues by whom they were
surrounded. Mr. Gladstone always remained devoted to Peel, and knew him
perhaps more thoroughly and intimately than any other man was privileged
to do. Peel went out of office very soon after he had made Mr. Gladstone
Under-secretary for the Colonies. Lord John Russell had brought forward
a series of motions on the ominous subject of the Irish Church, and Peel
was defeated and resigned. It is almost needless to say that Gladstone
went with him. Peel came back again in office in 1841, on the fall of
the Melbourne administration, and Mr. Gladstone became Vice-president of
the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and was at the same time
sworn in a member of the Privy Council. In 1843 he became President of
the Board of Trade. Early in 1845 he resigned his office because he
could not approve of the policy of the government with regard to the
Maynooth grant.

The great struggle on the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was
now coming on. It would be impossible that a man with Mr. Gladstone's
turn of mind and early training could have continued a protectionist,
when once he applied his intellect and his experience to a practical
examination of the subject. Once again he went with his leader. Peel saw
that there was nothing for it but to accept the principles of the Free
Trade party, who had been bearing the fiery cross of their peaceful and
noble agitation all through the country, and were gathering adherents
wherever they went.

It is a somewhat curious fact that Mr. Gladstone was not in the House of
Commons during the eventful session when the great battle of free trade
was fought and won. In thorough sympathy with Peel, he had joined the
government again as Colonial Secretary. Knowing that he could no longer
be in political sympathy with the Duke of Newcastle, whose influence had
obtained for him the r