I was likely to be kept prisoner at least for four hours. In a short time, however, a gentleman's carriage drove into the yard. He ordered fresh horses, and they were furnished. I went up to him at this moment. 'Sir, such and such are my circumstances. This is my name,' showing him the Duke of Gloucester's card; 'may I request the favour of a seat in your carriage to Cambridge?' 'Certainly, sir,' was the reply, 'you are very welcome.' The innkeeper was violently angry at this proceeding, and said we must pay him double. However, off we went. I found my companion a most intelligent man, who knew a great number of my friends intimately, and we passed two hours very pleasantly. I afterwards discovered that he was Mr. Scarlett1 the barrister, and was introduced to him by William Smith. I got to Cambridge in good time, met with Colin, got into comfortable rooms at Magdalen, breakfasted with Hodgson, and having made myself fine, went to the Senate House, into which I got after a smart push and squeeze, and saw the whole ceremony of the Installation.

FROM W. WILBERFORCE, ESQ., M.P.

September 3, 1811.

I return you Crabbe's 2 letter with thanks, and trust you will have done him good. But I think the Editor of the Christian Observer might have been a little nearer to dulcified at last.

TO T. B. MACAULAY.

November 12, 1811.

DEAR TOM,-I was much pleased with your letter and Selina's. I should not like you to be like General Campbell in India, who wrote a letter to your Uncle Colin on very important business, but when it came your uncle could not read one single word of it. By way of reproof your uncle took a sheet of paper and scribbled it over so as to give it the appearance of writing, although nothing was meant to be written. So when the letter came to General Campbell he called all his aides-de-camp about him, and they set themselves to decipher the writing, but with very little effect. At last the General wrote back to say that he thought he must mean so and so, but that his aide-de-camp thought his meaning was different.

1 Afterwards Lord Abinger.

2 Crabbe published The Borough in 1810. 'Some attacks upon the Huntingtonians in this poem produced a controversy with the Editor of the Christian Observer, which ended amicably.'-Dictionary of National Biography.

Then your uncle wrote to tell him the real state of the case, and the General was afterwards more careful to write legibly.

Your cousins at the Vicarage are dressed in tartans, and remind me of Benledi's 'living side.' I heard two days ago an anecdote of Bonaparte that will please you. When the Duchess of Gordon was at Paris in 1793, Bonaparte asked her what regiment her son, the Marquis of Huntly, commanded. She told him he commanded a Scotch regiment, the 92nd. His remark was, 'Les Écossais sont les plus braves gens du monde.' This perhaps is one mark of a Scotchman that you have yet to acquire. Perhaps, however, the air of Benledi may work wonders, or the touch of Wallace's sword in the castle of Dumbarton, or the view of Bannockburn.

Your Uncle Colin hopes you are all diligent in acquiring a facility of speaking French. He means to talk nothing else, morning, noon, or night, when he comes to Clapham.-Ever your affectionate father, Z. MACAULAY.

Macaulay resigned the secretaryship of the African Institution in 1812, having been fortunate in securing a thoroughly competent successor. By this time the Association was well launched, and Macaulay was now able to serve its interests efficiently without in addition continuing to perform the more mechanical portion of a secretary's duties. His resignation

gave his associates an opportunity of marking their appreciation of the value of the labour which he had devoted during five years to the formation of the Society, and a meeting was held at Freemasons' Hall, which was largely attended by the friends of Abolition, and at which a service of plate and an Address were presented to Macaulay.

'African Institution. March 25, 1812.-Resolved unanimously that this meeting is bound to express the deep sense it entertains of the eminent services of their pro tempore secretary, Z. Macaulay, who, combining great local knowledge and experience with the most ardent zeal, and the most assiduous and unwearied industry, has strenuously and gratuitously devoted to the concerns of the African Institution his time and talents, and has thereby established his claim to the lasting gratitude of all who are interested for the civilisation and happiness of Africa.'

16 Along Benledi's living side.'-Lady of the Lake, Canto v.

2 Freemasons' Tavern. Fine large hall, ranged with green benches like a lectureroom; raised platform at one end for the performers; arm-chairs for the Royal Dukes, and common chairs for common men. May 1813.-The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, edited by Augustus J. C. Hare.

Macaulay was deeply touched and gratified by the warmth of feeling exhibited upon this occasion, but such a frank and public recognition of his merits served also to call forth an outburst of violent hostility against him, and very shortly falsehoods of the most base and groundless nature were promulgated extensively with the view of blackening his character, and in the hopes of paralysing his usefulness. The supporters of Slavery had at length discovered that the grave and silent man who kept himself well in the background was the most dangerous among their opponents, and that it was he who supplied the sinews of war for the campaigns carried on by the more brilliant of their adversaries. All through the many years during which the Anti-slavery contest was prolonged Macaulay was the object of attacks, scurrilous and venomous to such a degree as to excite the indignation of the more generous-minded even among his enemies. But he bore the obloquy which his conduct had drawn upon him with patience and silence, although not with indifference, and did not waste in defending himself the precious time at his disposal, which he found already too short for the work to which he had consecrated his life. The eloquent words in which he is described by Sir James Stephen may well be quoted here.

'He drew on himself the poisoned shafts of calumny; and while feeling their sting as generous spirits alone can feel it, never turned a single step aside from his path to propitiate or to crush the slanderers.'

A fresh subject of interest began now to add to the labours of Macaulay's life. For some years past he and his friends had applied a large share of their thoughts to the discovery of the best means of preparing the way to open the British Empire in India for receiving instruction in the Christian religion. It was a propitious circumstance that a principal member of their coterie was one of the most influential among the Directors of the East India Company. Mr. Grant had passed many years of his life in India in the pursuit of important civil and commercial business, and during the last portion of his career there he had been entrusted with the superintendence of the whole of the Company's trade in Bengal. On returning to England in 1790 he was placed on the Board of the East India Company,

where his knowledge of the country, and his sagacity and prudence, secured for him great influence in the administration of India. Indeed it was popularly supposed that during some considerable time Mr. Grant reigned supreme at Leadenhall Street, and he was nicknamed the Director of the Court of Directors.

Similarity of religious feeling and objects in life led him on coming home to fix his residence at Clapham Common, and Lord Teignmouth, with whom he had been much associated in Bengal, followed his example at the termination of his GovernorGeneralship. It is interesting to emphasise the fact which is pointed out by a high authority, that in the conflict which ensued in Parliament, scarcely any can be found among those who were foremost in the warfare for the establishment of an Episcopal See in Calcutta, and for the removal of all restraints upon the diffusion of Christianity in India, who were not either themselves members of the special band of allies distinguished by the epithet of the Clapham Sect, or else very closely united in the bonds of friendship with them.

The year 1812 was chiefly devoted by the friends to East Indian affairs, and almost daily consultations took place, according to their custom when planning a campaign. The work of preparing petitions was entrusted to Mr. Babington; but he and Mr. Wilberforce and Henry Thornton all concur in bearing witness in their correspondence that the real agent upon whom the whole business depended was Macaulay. The points which it was their aim to assert were that an Episcopate should be established in Bengal, and that a recognition of the principle of introducing Christianity into our dominions in India should be made. Happily for their prospects of success they were aware that the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was decidedly in favour of Missions, and was urging upon his recalcitrant colleagues compliance with the views of the Evangelical party upon the East Indian questions.

The opportunity, for which laborious preparation had long been quietly and patiently carried on, arrived with the proposal for the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company, which came before Parliament early in the Session of 1813. Wilberforce himself was startled by the determined hostility Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.

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shown by the House of Commons to any attempt to Christianise India. He and his friends soon perceived that their only chance of success lay in resorting to the same tactics which they had pursued in the struggle for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and in bringing public opinion to bear upon the subject. The Government was well disposed to them, and Lord Wellesley's influence would, they knew, be exerted in their favour, so that no difficulty was anticipated in the House of Lords; but even Wilberforce, generally sanguine in his views, despaired of moving the Commons, who were possessed with exaggerated apprehensions of the effect of the proposed alterations upon our sovereignty in the East.

The time was very short, but no effort was spared to utilise it. Mr. Grant, who in early life had formed a close friendship with David Swartz, the celebrated Danish missionary, had in consequence been always inclined to feel a tolerance for Missions, which it was unusual at that period to find among men of his standing in India. Since his return home he had endeavoured, as far as lay in his power, to further the religious and educational plans of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, and had obtained appointments as Chaplains in the East for Henry Martyn and Thomason. He now laid before the House of Commons a paper which he had composed some years earlier, entitled 'A Plea for the Toleration of Missionary and Educational Work in the East.' The ability and fairness of the statement made a profound impression upon the minds of many of the members, and it was printed by order of the House.

Dr. Buchanan, whose influence may be said to have laid the foundation for the Ecclesiastical Establishment of our Indian Empire, was one of the young men the expense of whose education at Cambridge was defrayed by Henry Thornton, and whose views in religion were largely owing to Mr. Simeon's teaching. After serving a short apprenticeship as curate to John Newton, he had gone out to Calcutta as Chaplain to the East India Company. The apathy and indifference, and in many cases the open enmity, manifested almost universally at this period by Anglo-Indians towards spiritual subjects made a painful impression upon the mind of one who had come fresh from the circle of the Evangelical revival; but Buchanan set himself steadily to fulfil the duties of his Chaplaincy, while