This letter is dated the 27th of July.  On that day week, Wilberforce was carried to his grave in Westminster Abbey.  “We laid him,” writes Macaulay, “side by side with Canning, at the feet of Pitt, and within two steps of Fox and Grattan.”  He died with the promised land full in view.  Before the end of August Parliament abolished slavery, and the last touch was put to the work that had consumed so many pure and noble lives.  In a letter of congratulation to Zachary Macaulay, Mr. Buxton says:  “Surely you have reason to rejoice.  My sober and deliberate opinion is that you have done more towards this consummation than any other man.  For myself, I take pleasure in acknowledging that you have been my tutor all the way through, and that I could have done nothing without you.”  Such was the spirit of these men, who, while the struggle lasted, were prodigal of health and ease; but who, in the day of triumph, disclaimed, each for himself, even that part of the merit which their religion allowed them to ascribe to human effort and self-sacrifice.

London:  July 11, 1833.

Dear Hannah,—­I have been so completely overwhelmed with business for some days that I have not been able to find time for writing a line.  Yesterday night we read the India Bill a second time.  It was a Wednesday, and the reporters gave hardly any account of what passed.  They always resent being forced to attend on that day, which is their holiday.  I made the best speech, by general agreement, and in my own opinion, that I ever made in my life.  I was an hour and three-quarters up; and such compliments as I had from Lord Althorp, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Wynne, O’Connell, Grant, the Speaker, and twenty other people, you never heard.  As there is no report of the speech, I have been persuaded, rather against my will, to correct it for publication.  I will tell you one compliment that was paid me, and which delighted me more than any other.  An old member said to me:  “Sir, having heard that speech may console the young people for never having heard Mr. Burke.” [A Tory member said that Macaulay resembled both the Burkes:  that he was like the first from his eloquence, and like the second from his stopping other people’s mouths.]

The Slavery Bill is miserably bad.  I am fully resolved not to be dragged through the mire, but to oppose, by speaking and voting, the clauses which I think objectionable.  I have told Lord Althorp this, and have again tendered my resignation.  He hinted that he thought that the Government would leave me at liberty to take my own line, but that he must consult his colleagues.  I told him that I asked for no favour; that I knew what inconvenience would result if official men were allowed to dissent from Ministerial measures, and yet to keep their places; and that I should not think myself in the smallest degree ill-used if the Cabinet accepted my resignation.  This is the present posture of affairs.  In the meantime the two Houses are at daggers drawn.  Whether the Government will last to the end of the Session I neither know nor care.  I am sick of Boards, and of the House of Commons; and pine for a few quiet days, a cool country breeze, and a little chatting with my dear sister.