CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS

ZACHARY MACAULAY, the third son of the Rev. John Macaulay and of his second wife, Margaret Campbell of Inverseger, was born at the manse of Inverary on the 2nd of May 1768.

The clan MacAulay had long inhabited the western Highlands, and appears to have been considered a branch of the MacGregors. In a bond or deed of friendship1 between their chief, Aulay MacAulay of Ardincaple, and the chief of the MacGregors, which was executed in 1591, MacAulay acknowledges to being a cadet of the clan MacGregor, and agrees to pay a tribute of cattle to his chief. But when the MacGregors fell under the ban of the law, Aulay MacAulay did not scruple to turn against them, and did his best to avert any suspicion of complicity in their rebellion from himself and his followers, by the hostility with which he pursued his former allies. The successors of this politic chieftain did not possess sufficient prudence to retain a grasp upon the property which his shrewdness had preserved for them. They gradually dissipated the family possessions by carelessness and extravagance, until the last chief, another Aulay MacAulay, overwhelmed with debt, was reduced to sell Ardincaple and the scanty remains of his patrimony to John, the fourth Duke of Argyll, in 1764.

Some of the Macaulays had settled in the south-west part of the island of Lewis, and in the reign of James VI. of Scotland one of them was distinguished by the name of Donald Cam, to signify that he was blind of one eye. It may be mentioned that this defect was inherited by his great-great-grandson, Zachary Macaulay, and that it was a family tradition among Macaulay's children that their father did not discover the fact that he

1 In this deed the two contracting parties describe themselves as originally descended from the same stock-'M'Alpins of auld.'

A

could only see with one eye until after he had grown to man's estate.

Donald Cam was noted for the courage and activity which he displayed in the feuds that were constantly taking place with neighbouring clans; but he made himself specially conspicuous by the fierceness and frequency of his attacks upon the Fifeshire Colonists at Stornoway, and prided himself on taking the patriotic side in those troubles. His son, who was commonly called the Man of Brenish, had even a higher reputation than his father for feats of strength and daring; but after him the Macaulays seem to have sought distinction in more peaceful fields, and it is a curious sign of the rapid changes which were taking place at this time in the habits and manners of the Scotch, that this pugnacious Highlander should have had a son, and five grandsons, Ministers of the Presbyterian Church.

Aulay Macaulay, the son of the Man of Brenish, and the grandson of Donald Cam, may reasonably be credited with a considerable portion of hereditary spirit in adopting a profession so opposed to the tastes hitherto prevalent in his family. He was Minister of Harris. One of his sons, the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay, was sent as missionary to St. Kilda by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and published afterwards a History of St. Kilda, which attracted the attention of Dr. Johnson, and procured him the honour of that visit to his manse at Calder of which Boswell gives so amusing an

account.

The eldest son of Aulay, John Macaulay, the father of Zachary, was born at Harris in 1720. At the time of Dr. Johnson's tour to the Hebrides in 1773 John Macaulay was Minister of Inverary, but the following year he was appointed to Cardross in Dumbartonshire, and removed there when his son Zachary was about six years old. John Macaulay's first wife had died a year after her marriage, leaving one child; but by his second wife, Margaret Campbell, he had at the time of his removal a large family, which in the end numbered twelve children. With such rapidly increasing demands upon a small income, it was necessary that each son should in turn, as soon as he attained a suitable age, be put in the way of maintaining himself, and when only fourteen Zachary was placed in a merchant's office at Glasgow.

The history of his early years will be best related by himself in a short autobiographical memoir which he wrote at Sierra Leone in 1797.

'I can scarce ever think on my past life without adverting to those words of John Newton's:

""Thou didst once a wretch behold

In rebellion blindly bold

Scorn Thy grace, Thy power defy
That poor rebel, Lord, was I."

'I am indeed a signal monument of God's long-suffering and tender mercy. What shall I render to Him for all His benefits? 'Soon after I reached the age of fourteen, I became in a great measure my own master, by being removed from the control of my father and mother, and placed in a merchant's countinghouse in Glasgow. This was a line of life which I entered upon with great regret, for I had at that time a strong passion for literature; but I acquiesced readily in my father's determination, from perceiving that his stipend could not well afford the expense of a literary education.

I

I felt the disappointment, however, very acutely, and thought I lost by this arrangement all my past labour to which I had been greatly stimulated by the hope of academical honours. had already acquired a pretty general knowledge of the Latin language, and had also such a tincture of Grecian learning as enabled me to read Homer without much difficulty. I read French with tolerable ease, and had besides made considerable progress in mathematics. What made me prize all this the more was that it had been acquired mainly by my own exertions, for I had the misfortune never to have been under any regular system of tuition. It was only at times that I had any other instructor besides my father, and his avocations were so numerous as to render it altogether impossible for him to pay me the requisite attention. Being the oldest son at home, the care of instructing the others devolved on me; and though by this circumstance I was a good deal aided in my learning, yet I think I can trace to it the rise of several tempers which have caused me no small trouble in after life, particularly my impatience and self-confidence, my imposing tone, and dogmatical, magisterial style as well in writing as speaking.

'But my reading was by no means confined to the dead languages. My father had a large collection of books, and my appetite for them was quite insatiable. There were few of the English classics which I had not read. The great poets were quite familiar to me. I was, besides, an eager hunter after that

sort of anecdote wherewith ephemeral publications abound. What stimulated me to this, in addition to the pleasure they afforded myself, was, I remember, an eager desire of shining in conversation. I much affected the company of men; and having a good memory, though very little judgment, and a great share of conceit and assumption, I was in the habit of obtruding my remarks whatever the subject of conversation was. I was much encouraged to this by the notice and ill-timed commendation which was occasionally bestowed upon me when I ought rather to have been repressed. It seems unnatural that the bent of my inclinations should have lain in this direction at so early an age, but it arose in a great measure from the necessity imposed upon me to seek amusement in some other way than boys generally do, by a serious accident that happened to my right arm when I was nine years old. It subjected me to several painful operations, and it was about five years before I recovered the proper use of it.

'I had at this time some religious impressions on my mind, the effect of education. I liked to hear sermons, I thought it wrong not to say my prayers, and I felt a salutary check of conscience when I perceived myself flying directly in the face of a divine mandate. Happy for me if I had never lost this feeling, but happier still if my conscience were now restored to its office of serving the living God, and acted faithfully as his Vicegerent.

'I remained in Glasgow upwards of two years; and during those two years I improved indeed in the knowledge of useful learning, but I made much more rapid progress in the knowledge of evil. The people with whom I chiefly associated were of two classes. Those whose society I most eagerly coveted were students in the University, and many of those who stood high in point of talents flattered me with their particular regard. I was admitted to all their convivial meetings, and made one of their society on all occasions.

'As they were much more advanced in years than I was, I naturally looked up to them for information; and as many of them were really men of wit and taste, I gladly received the law from their mouths. But some of them, who, with I am sorry to say sentiments little altered, are at this day invested with the sacred names of ambassadors for God, made a cruel use of their influence. They employed it in eradicating from my mind every trace of religious belief. I recoiled at first with a kind of horror from the propositions they advanced with respect to the Bible and the existence of a God. But my scruples soon yielded to the united efforts of arguments whose fallacy I was unable to detect, of wit whose brilliancy dazzled

me, and of sharp and pointed raillery which served to silence me.

'Nor were temptations wanting, for the other class of persons with whom I associated were as profligate in their practice as the students were in their principles. My immediate superiors in the counting-house were of this class, as well as many others in the mercantile line of life with whom I necessarily became acquainted. Taught by them, I began to think excess in wine, so far from being a sin, to be a ground for glorying; and it became one of the objects of my ambition to be able to see all my companions under the table. And this was the more surprising as I really disliked, nay even loathed, excessive drinking.

'This same principle of ambition, however, operated in some respects as a check upon me, for I had access, through introductions from my father, to many respectable families in the town whose civilities I was anxious not to forfeit. I was therefore careful in preserving at least appearances, and also in avoiding that notoriety which would have exposed me to my father's displeasure. The domestic society which I thus enjoyed was not of a nature to counteract in any considerable degree the pernicious effects of the above-mentioned associations. Being tolerably accommodating, I fell into the predilections of the ladies of the family, which were entirely for new plays and marble-covered books. When I was not draining the midnight bowl, I was employed in wasting the midnight oil by poring over such abominable, but fascinating works as are to be found under the head of novels in the catalogue of every circulating library.

'There are some few, however, of the immensity of books of this nature which I perused at that period of my life that still afford me pleasure when I recollect them. The characteristic conversations of Miss Burney's Evelina and Cecilia, the humour of Smollett, and the native manners-painting style of Fielding have still their charm for me.

'To my other defects I now accordingly added something of the romantic and extravagant. I was continually laying the plan of wonderful adventures, conning speeches to repeat to ladies delivered from the hands of robbers and assassins, or adjusting the particulars of some affair of honour. With all this, however, I was exceedingly attentive to business; and my employers, when I left them, presented me with a considerable gratuity to mark their approbation of my conduct.

'Towards the end of the year 1784 a circumstance happened which gave a temporary suspension to my career, and led to a few sober reflections. I then saw that the only way that