Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), twice Prime Minister, and as Home Secretary the minister who handled the Island's business in the 1820s.

The Manx correspondence of those years is addressed to him. Lieutenant-Governor Smelt wrote to him about the prisons, about repairs and estimates, and about the inconvenience of Acts not being promulgated early enough after the royal assent. The Duke of Atholl wrote to him from the Island and from Castle Mona, transmitting Thomas Fell's petition and putting questions about the standing of the Keys in the Court of General Gaol Delivery, which the Attorney-General thought were best referred to Peel himself. The House of Keys wrote to him in August 1822 about the Duke's behaviour and his threats to lay complaints against them before His Majesty's Ministers. Bishop Murray wrote to him in July 1825 about the expulsion of Roper, his lay Chancellor and a member of Council, from the Manx bar by the Lieutenant-Governor, and followed it with a statement of the words Roper had used in the Chancery court which the Lieutenant-Governor charged as an insult. Lord Sidmouth sent him a private reference for Mr Christian as First Deemster. Papers on the Roper business were sent to the Law Officers for their opinion on his instruction.

The Atholl settlement was being wound up in the same years. One of his correspondents reported in 1826 that the treaty between the Crown and the Duke was rapidly advancing, that the Duke's acquired property was not involved, and asked whether Castle Mona might be applied to some public purpose, Government House having soon to become the gaoler's.