stroke on the accusation of the greatest vagabond on board.  They asked me with triumph if yesterday had not been Sunday.  ‘Oh,’ said they, ’the National Convention have decreed that there is no Sunday, and that the Bible is all a lie.’” After such an experience it is not difficult to account for the keen and almost personal interest with which, to the very day of Waterloo, Mr. Macaulay watched through its varying phases the rise and the downfall of the French power.  He followed the progress of the British arms with a minute and intelligent attention which from a very early date communicated itself to his son; and the hearty patriotism of Lord Macaulay is perhaps in no small degree the consequence of what his father suffered from the profane and rapacious sansculottes of the revolutionary squadron.

Towards the middle of October the Republicans took their departure.  Even at this distance of time it is provoking to learn that they got back to Brest without meeting an enemy that had teeth to bite.  The African climate, however, reduced the squadron to such a plight, that it was well for our frigates that they had not the chance of getting its fever-stricken crews under their hatches.  The French never revisited Freetown.  Indeed, they had left the place in such a condition that it was not worth their while to return.  The houses had been carefully burned to the ground, and the live stock killed.  Except the clothes on their backs, and a little brandy and flour, the Europeans had lost everything they had in the world.  Till assistance came from the mother country they lived upon such provisions as could be recovered from the reluctant hands of the negro settlers, who providentially had not been able to resist the temptation of helping the Republicans to plunder the Company’s stores.  Judicious liberality at home, and a year’s hard work on the spot, did much to repair the damage; and, when his colony was again upon its feet, Mr. Macaulay sailed to England with the object of recruiting his health, which had broken down under an attack of low fever.

On his arrival he was admitted at once and for ever within the innermost circle of friends and fellow-labourers who were united round Wilberforce and Henry Thornton by indissoluble bonds of mutual personal regard and common public ends.  As an indispensable part of his initiation into that very pleasant confederacy, he was sent down to be introduced to Hannah More, who was living at Cowslip Green, near Bristol, in the enjoyment of general respect, mixed with a good deal of what even those who admire her as she deserved must in conscience call flattery.  He there met Selina Mills, a former pupil of the school which the Miss Mores kept in the neighbouring city, and a lifelong friend of all the sisters.  The young lady is said to have been extremely pretty and attractive, as may well be believed by those who saw her in later years.  She was the daughter of a member of the Society of Friends, who at one time was a bookseller