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.

I shall now certainly remain in office; and if, as I expect, the Irish
Church Bill passes th