of freedom should be
immediate or gradual, and whether compensation should be granted to the
planters. The problem had been discussed by Stephen, Taylor, and Lord
Howick, afterwards Earl Grey (1802-1894), and various plans had been
considered. In March 1833, however, Mr. Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby,
became head of the Colonial Office; and the effect was at first to
reduce Stephen and Taylor to their 'original insignificance.' They had
already been attacked in the press for taking too much upon themselves,
and Stanley now prepared a measure without their assistance. He found
that he had not the necessary experience for a difficult task, and was
soon obliged to have recourse to Stephen, who prepared the measure which
was finally passed. The delay had made expedition necessary if slavery
was not to continue for another year. My father received notice to draw
the Act on Saturday morning. He went home and completed his task by the
middle of the day on Monday. The Act (3 & 4 William IV. c. 73) contains
sixty-six sections, fills twenty-six pages in the octavo edition of the
Statute-book, and creates a whole scheme of the most intricate and
elaborate kind. The amanuensis to whom it was dictated used to tell the
story as an illustration of his own physical powers. At that time, as
another clerk in the office tells my brother, 'it was no unusual thing
for your father to dictate before breakfast as much as would fill thirty
sides of office folio paper,' equal to about ten pages of the 'Edinburgh
Review,' The exertion, however, in this instance was exceptional: only
upon one other occasion did my father ever work upon a Sunday; it cost
him a severe nervous illness and not improbably sowed the seed of later
attacks.[37]

I can say little of my father's action in later years. On September 17,
1834, he was appointed to the newly created office of Assistant
Under-Secretary of State. He had, says Taylor, for many years done the
work of the Under-Secretary, and he objected to doing it any longer on
the same terms. The Under-Secretary complained to Lord Melbourne that
his subordinate desired to supplant him, and got only the characteristic
reply, 'It looks devilishly like it.'[38] In 1836 he had to retire, and
my father became Under-Secretary in his place, with a salary of
2,000_l._ a year, on February 4 of that year, and at the same time gave
up his connection with the Board of Trade. He was actively concerned in
the establishment of