SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 97, 9 August 1879, Page 3

SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.

Vanity Fair recently contained an article on the extraordinary letter of Sir Robert Peel, which we published last issue. The writer says : —" Now it is to be remembered that Sir Robert Peel is one of the last persons in the world from whom the Royal Family would naturally have looked to receive anything in the snap- of a deliberate

aft'roni. 'l-:c Peel (a; iy have, since tlie days of the great 2.1 Robert, always boon treated by the sovereign with very markod kindness, and distinguished by very constant favours. Sir Robert himself bos shored in these favours. The Queen stood godmother to bis eldest daughter who is named after Her Majesty, and he has always been treated as a pergonal friend by all the members of the Royal House. lie has, moreover, received the Grand Cross of the Bath, he was formerly Chief Secretary for Ireland, ho is a Privy Councillor and a member of Parliament, and he is s"> years age. His position, therefore, is such as should of itself alone offur a security that he would he decent tit his public utteiances, while all his perianal surroundings would seem to give assurance that it in any way ha transgressed the bounds of decency, it would nut, at anyrate, be in regard to the 1\ ij-al Family. Nevertheless, this was •.('very thing he did, and coming as ..front came, from him of all men,

t v.;j inevitably felt all the more keenly iVe do not pretend to say whether Sir ioboit was incorrectly informed as to

what '.ii.t I'rince said at the Marlborough Club, or whether ho correctly or iucosrectly understood the Prince's attitude towards him at the turf. But if both the language and the attitude were such as he supposes, it is impassible to contend that they were not fully justified by the circumstances. Royal Princes have their feeling of respect and affection for their relatives like other people and when these feelings are suddenly outraged without any real or apparent reason, they, like other people, must be expected to feel indignation at the outrage. If, therefore, the Prince of Wales did say that he would never again speak to Sir Robert Peel, and did follow it up by ignoring his presence, there was nothing but, what was natural either in the language or in the act. This is precisely what nine men out of ten woidd have said and done under similar circumstances of provocation. There is, however, this much to bo said, that the Prince of Wales is so much more amiable and forgiving than nine men out of ten tiiat iu this case a word or an act wrung from him by due provocation is not by any means to bo held as irrevocable. There is indeed little doubt that had Sir Robert Peel recognised his fault, and shown himself disposed to mako some amends for the gratuitous injury he had done, the Prince would both have forgotten and forgiven it, as he has many a time forgotten and forgiven. . . . There is but one charitable supposition that can in any way alleviate the condemnation which all decent persons must extend to the outrage of which Sir Robert Peel has been guilty—and that is the supposition that his mind must in some way have been unhinged."