of a century; a
zealous Whig, who shrank from the very appearance of disaffection to his
party; a man of sense, with no ambition to be called Quixotic; a member
for a large constituency, possessed of only seven hundred pounds in the
world when his purse was at its fullest; above all, an affectionate son
and brother, now, more than ever, the main hope and reliance of those
whom he held most dear;--it may well be believed that he was not in a
hurry to act the martyr. His father's affairs were worse than bad. The
African firm, without having been reduced to declare itself bankrupt,
had ceased to exist as a house of business; or existed only so far that
for some years to come every penny that Macaulay earned, beyond what the
necessities of life demanded, was scrupulously devoted to paying, and
at length to paying off, his father's creditors; a dutiful enterprise
in which he was assisted by his brother Henry, [Henry married in 1841
a daughter of his brother's old political ally, Lord Denman. He died at
Boa Vista, in 1846, leaving two sons, Henry, and Joseph, Macaulay.] a
young man of high spirit and excellent abilities, who had recently been
appointed one of the Commissioners of Arbitration in the Prize Courts at
Sierra Leone.

The pressure of pecuniary trouble was now beginning to make itself felt
even by the younger members of the family. About this time, or perhaps a
little earlier, Hannah Macaulay writes thus to one of her cousins:
"You say nothing about coming to us. You must come in good health and
spirits. Our trials ought not greatly to depress us; for, after all, all
we want is money, the easiest want to bear; and, when we have so many
mercies--friends who love us and whom we love; no bereavements; and,
above all, (if it be not our own fault,) a hope full of immortality--let
us not be so ungrateful as to repine because we are without what in
itself cannot make our happiness."

Macaulay's colleagues, who, without knowing his whole story, knew enough
to be aware that he could ill afford to give up office, were earnest
in their remonstrances; but he answered shortly, and almost roughly:
"I cannot go counter to my father. He has devoted his whole life to the
question, and I cannot grieve him by giving way when he wishes me to
stand firm." During the crisis of the West India Bill, Zachary Macaulay
and his son were in constant correspondence. There is something touching
in the picture which these letters present of the o