Kindest regards to Lord Jeffrey.

Yours most truly

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Mrs. Cropper.

Calcutta:  December 7, 1834.

Dearest Margaret,—­I rather suppose that some late letters from Nancy may have prepared you to learn what I am now about to communicate.  She is going to be married, and with my fullest and warmest approbation.  I can truly say that, if I had to search India for a husband for her, I could have found no man to whom I could with equal confidence have entrusted her happiness.  Trevelyan is about eight and twenty.  He was educated at the Charter-house, and then went to Haileybury, and came out hither.  In this country he has distinguished himself beyond any man of his standing by his great talent for business; by his liberal and enlarged views of policy; and by literary merit, which, for his opportunities, is considerable.  He was at first placed at Delhi under —–­, a very powerful and a very popular man, but extremely corrupt.  This man tried to initiate Trevelyan in his own infamous practices.  But the young fellow’s spirit was too noble for such things.  When only twenty-one years of age he publicly accused —–­, then almost at the head of the service, of receiving bribes from the natives.  A perfect storm was raised against the accuser.  He was almost everywhere abused, and very generally cut.  But with a firmness and ability scarcely ever seen in any man so young, he brought his proofs forward, and, after an inquiry of some weeks, fully made out his case. —–­ was dismissed in disgrace, and is now living obscurely in England.  The Government here and the Directors at home applauded Trevelyan in the highest terms; and from that tithe he has been considered as a man likely to rise to the very top of the service.  Lord William told him to ask for anything that he wished for.  Trevelyan begged that something might be done for his elder brother, who is in the Company’s army.  Lord William told him that he had richly earned that or anything else, and gave Lieutenant Trevelyan a very good diplomatic employment.  Indeed Lord William, a man who makes no favourites, has always given to Trevelyan the strongest marks, not of a blind partiality, but of a thoroughly well-grounded and discriminating esteem.

Not long ago Trevelyan was appointed by him to the Under Secretaryship for foreign affairs, an office of a very important and confidential nature.  While holding the place he was commissioned to report to Government on the operation of the Internal Transit duties of India.  About a year ago his Report was completed.  I shall send to England a copy or two of it by the first safe conveyance; for nothing that I can say of his abilities, or of his public spirit, will be half so satisfactory.  I have no hesitation in affirming that it is a perfect masterpiece in its kind.  Accustomed as I have been to public affairs, I never read an abler State paper; and I do not believe that there is, I will not say in India, but in England,