Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London:  July 24, 1833,

My dear Sister,—­You will have seen by the papers that the West India debate on Monday night went off very quietly in little more than an hour.  To-night we expect the great struggle, and I fear that, much against my inclination, I must bear a part in it.  My resignation is in Lord Althorp’s hands.  He assures me that he will do his utmost to obtain for me liberty to act as I like on this question; but Lord Grey and Stanley are to be consulted, and I think it very improbable that they will consent to allow me so extraordinary a privilege.  I know that, if I were Minister, I would not allow such latitude to any man in office; and so I told Lord Althorp.  He answered in the kindest and most flattering manner; told me that in office I had surpassed their expectations, and that, much as they wished to bring me in last year, they wished much more to keep me in now.  I told him in reply that the matter was one for the Ministers to settle, purely with a view to their own interest; that I asked for no indulgence; that I could make no terms; and that, what I would not do to serve them, I certainly would not do to keep my place.  Thus the matter stands.  It will probably be finally settled within a few hours.

This detestable Session goes on lengthening, and lengthening, like a human hair in one’s mouth. (Do you know that delicious sensation?) Last month we expected to have been up before the middle of August.  Now we should be glad to be quite certain of being in the country by the first of September.  One comfort I shall have in being turned out:  I will not stay a day in London after the West India Bill is through Committee; which I hope it will be before the end of next week.

The new Edinburgh Review is not much amiss; but I quite agree with the publishers, the editor, and the reading public generally, that the number would have been much the better for an article of thirty or forty pages from the pen of a gentleman who shall be nameless.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London:  July 25, 1833.

My dear Sister,—­The plot is thickening.  Yesterday Buxton moved an instruction to the Committee on the Slavery Bill, which the Government opposed, and which I supported.  It was extremely painful to me to speak against all my political friends; so painful that at times I could hardly go on.  I treated them as mildly as I could; and they all tell me that I performed my difficult task not ungracefully.  We divided at two this morning, and were 151 to 158.  The Ministers found that, if they persisted, they would infallibly be beaten.  Accordingly they came down to the House at twelve this day, and agreed to reduce the apprenticeship to seven years for the agricultural labourers, and to five years for the skilled labourers.  What other people may do I cannot tell; but I am inclined to be satisfied with this concession; particularly as I believe that, if we press the thing further, they will resign, and we shall have no Bill at all, but instead of it a Tory Ministry and a dissolution.  Some people flatter me with the assurance that our large minority, and the consequent change in the Bill, have been owing to me.  If this be so, I have done one useful act at least in my life.