and the question had been put from the Chair, and at once proceeded to explain the policy which he intended to adopt.  His speech was long and labored, and somewhat wearied the audience by the elaborate manner in which he explained how his opinions had been brought into gradual change with regard to free trade and protection.  He made it, however, perfectly clear that he was now a convert to Cobden’s opinions, and that he intended to introduce some measure which should practically amount to the abolition of protection.

It was in this debate, and immediately after Peel had spoken, that Benjamin Disraeli made his first great impression on Parliament.  He had been in the House for many years, and had made many attempts, had sometimes been laughed at, had sometimes been disliked, and occasionally for a moment admired.  But it was when he rose immediately after Sir Robert Peel, and denounced Peel as one who had betrayed his party and his principles, that he made the first deep impression on the House of Commons, and came to be considered as a serious and influential Parliamentary personage.  “I am not one of the converts,” Disraeli said, “I am perhaps a member of a fallen party.”  A new Protection party was formed almost immediately under the leadership of George Lord Bentinck, a man of great energy and tenacity of purpose, who had hitherto spent his life almost altogether on the turf, who had had almost no previous preparation for leadership or even for debate, but who certainly, when he did accept the responsible position offered to him, showed a considerable capacity for leadership and an unwearying attention to his duties.

On January 27th Sir Robert Peel explained his financial policy.  His intention was to abandon the sliding scale altogether, to impose for the present a duty of ten shillings a quarter on corn when the price of it was under forty-eight shillings a quarter, to reduce that duty by one shilling for every shilling of rise in price until it reached fifty-three shillings a quarter, when the duty should fall to four shillings.  This, however, was to be only a temporary arrangement.  It was to last but three years, and at the end of that time protective duties on grain were to be wholly abandoned.  We need not go at any length into the history of the long debates on Peel’s propositions.  The discussion of one amendment, which was in substance a motion to reject the scheme altogether, lasted for twelve nights.  The third reading of the bill passed the House of Commons on May 15th, by a majority of ninety-eight.

The bill went up at once to the House of Lords, and at the urgent pressure of the Duke of Wellington was carried through that House without any serious opposition.  The Duke made no secret of his own opinions.  He assured many of his brother peers that he disliked the measure just as much as anyone could do, but he insisted that they had all better vote for it nevertheless.  Sir Robert Peel had triumphed, but he found himself