Ever yours

T. B. M.

London:  November 1, 1833.

Dear Hannah,—­I have not much to add to what I told you yesterday; but everything that I have to add looks one way.  We have a new Chairman and Deputy Chairman, both very strongly in my favour.  Sharp, by whom I sate yesterday at the Fishmongers’ dinner, told me that my old enemy James Mill had spoken to him on the subject.  Mill is, as you have heard, at the head of one of the principal departments of the India House.  The late Chairman consulted him about me; hoping, I suppose, to have his support against me.  Mill said, very handsomely, that he would advise the Company to take me; for, as public men went, I was much above the average, and, if they rejected me, he thought it very unlikely that they would get anybody so fit.  This is all the news that I have to give you.  It is not much.  But I wish to keep you as fully informed of what is going on as I am myself.

Old Sharp told me that I was acting quite wisely, but that he should never see me again; and he cried as he said it. [Mr. Sharp died in 1837, before Macaulay’s return from India.] I encouraged him; and told him that I hoped to be in England again before the end of 1839, and that there was nothing impossible in our meeting again.  He cheered up after a time; told me that he should correspond with me, and give me all the secret history both of politics and of society; and promised to select the best books, and send them regularly to me.

The Fishmongers’ dinner was very good, but not so profusely splendid as I had expected.  There has been a change, I find, and not before it was wanted.  They had got at one time to dining at ten guineas a head.  They drank my health, and I harangued them with immense applause.  I talked all the evening to Sharp.  I told him what a dear sister I had, and how readily she had agreed to go with me.  I had told Grant the same in the morning.  Both of them extolled my good fortune in having such a companion.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London:  November—­, 1833.

Dear Hannah,—­Things stand as they stood; except that the report of my appointment is every day spreading more widely; and that I am beset by advertising dealers begging leave to make up a hundred cotton shirts for me, and fifty muslin gowns for you, and by clerks out of place begging to be my secretaries.  I am not in very high spirits to-day, as I have just received a letter from poor Ellis, to whom I had not communicated my intentions till yesterday.  He writes so affectionately and so plaintively that he quite cuts me to the heart.  There are few indeed from whom I shall part with so much pain; and he, poor fellow, says that, next to his wife, I am the person for whom he feels the most thorough attachment, and in whom he places the most unlimited confidence.