rotectionists could not
defeat the Government. In the Commons the Whig votes ensured a
majority: in the Lords the influence of Wellington triumphed over the
resistance of the more obstinate landowners. The Bill passed its third
reading by ninety-eight votes.

[Note 10: The Right Hon. C. P. Villiers, M.P. for Wolverhampton,
began to advocate repeal in 1837, four years before Cobden entered
Parliament.]

But Peel knew how uncertain was his position in view of the hostility
aroused. At this very time the Irish question was acute, as a Coercion
Bill was under consideration, and this gave his enemies their chance.
The Protectionist Tories made an unprincipled alliance for the moment
with the Irish members; and on the very day when the Repeal of the Corn
Laws passed the House of Lords, the ministry was defeated in the
Commons. The moment of his fall, when Disraeli and the Protectionists
were loudest in their exultation, was the moment of his triumph. It is
the climax of his career. In the long debate on Repeal he had refused to
notice personal attacks: he now rose superior to all personal rancour.
In defeat he bore himself with dignity, and in his last speech as
minister he praised Cobden in very generous terms, giving him the chief
credit for the benefits which the Bill conferred upon his
fellow-countrymen. This speech gave offence to his late colleagues,
Aberdeen, Sidney Herbert, and Gladstone, and was interpreted as being
designed to mark clearly Peel's breach with the Conservative party. The
whole episode is illustrated in an interesting way in the _Life of
Gladstone_. Lord Morley[11] reports a long conversation between the two
friends and colleagues, where Peel declares his intention to act in
future as a private member and to abstain from party politics.
Gladstone, while fully allowing that Peel had earned the right to retire
after such labours ('you have been Prime Minister in a sense in which no
other man has been since Mr. Pitt's time'), pointed out how impossible
it would be for him to carry out his intentions. His personal
ascendancy in Parliament was too great: men must look to him as a
leader. But Peel evidently was at the end of his strength, and had been
suffering acutely from pains in the head, due to an old shooting
accident but intensified by recent hard work. For the moment repose was
essential.

[Note 11: Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, vol. i, pp. 297-300 (cf.
Gladstone's own retirement in 1874).]

It