which pronounced the doom of Slavery; and which ordained
that no native of the British territories in the East
should “by reason only of his religion, place
of birth, descent, or colour, be disabled from holding
any place, office, or employment.” The measure
was introduced by Mr. Charles Grant, the President
of the Board of Control, and was read a second time
on Wednesday the 10th July. On that occasion
Macaulay defended the bill in a thin House; a circumstance
which may surprise those who are not aware that on
a Wednesday, and with an Indian question on the paper,
Cicero replying to Hortensius would hardly draw a
quorum. Small as it was, the audience contained
Lord John Russell, Peel, O’Connell, and other
masters in the Parliamentary craft. Their unanimous
judgment was summed up by Charles Grant, in words
which every one who knows the House of Commons will
recognise as being very different from the conventional
verbiage of mutual senatorial flattery. “I
must embrace the opportunity of expressing, not what
I felt, (for language could not express it,) but of
making an attempt to convey to the House my sympathy
with it in its admiration of the speech of my honourable
and learned friend; a speech which, I will venture
to assert, has never been exceeded within these walls
for the development of statesmanlike policy and practical
good sense. It exhibited all that is noble in
oratory; all that is sublime, I had almost said, in
poetry; all that is truly great, exalted, and virtuous
in human nature. If the House at large felt a
deep interest in this magnificent display, it may judge
of what were my emotions when I perceived in the hands
of my honourable friend the great principles which
he expounded glowing with fresh colours, and arrayed
in all the beauty of truth.”
There is no praise more gratefully treasured than
that which is bestowed by a generous chief upon a
subordinate with whom he is on the best of terms.
Macaulay to the end entertained for Lord Glenelg that
sentiment of loyalty which a man of honour and feeling
will always cherish with regard to the statesman under
whom he began his career as a servant of the Crown.
[The affinity between this sentiment and that of the
Quaestor towards his first Proconsul, so well described
in the Orations against Verres, is one among the innumerable
points of resemblance between the public life of ancient
Rome and modern England.] The Secretary repaid the
President for his unvarying kindness and confidence
by helping him to get the bill through committee with
that absence of friction which is the pride and delight
of official men. The vexed questions of Establishment
and Endowment, (raised by the clauses appointing bishops
to Madras and Bombay, and balancing them with as many
salaried Presbyterian chaplains,) increased the length
of the debates and the number of the divisions; but
the Government carried every point by large majorities,
and, with slight modifications in detail, and none
in principle, the measure became law with the almost
universal approbation both of Parliament and the country.