XVI 



connected with India ; how much he had read or thought on the 

 subject, his papers on Clive and Hastings (written later) may never- 

 theless bear testimony. Still, no doubt, prudential motives, and 

 those of no ungenerous prudence, influenced his determination. By 

 a few years of economy, careful but not illiberal, he might make a 

 provision for his future life (he was a man with no expensive or 

 prodigal habits) which might place him above dependence either on 

 the servitude of office, or the servitude of literary labour. There 

 was another incentive his family had never been affluent. He 

 might add to the comforts and assist in the advancement of those to 

 whom he was attached by the strongest domestic affections, a duty 

 which he discharged with unsparing generosity. In India he took 

 his seat as Member of the Council and as President of the Law Com- 

 mission. It has been supposed, and indeed asserted, that this legis- 

 lative mission was barren and without result ; now, however, it is 

 bearing its mature fruits. After much, perhaps inevitable, delay, and 

 repeated revisions, the Indian Criminal Code, in the formation of 

 which he took a leading part, and which he had enriched with most 

 valuable explanatory notes, will, with some alterations, and those not 

 substantial, from January next have the force of law throughout 

 British India. Macaulay's share in this great work, especially his 

 notes, is declared by those who have a right to judge on such sub- 

 jects, to have placed his reputation as a jurist on a solid foundation. 

 It is the first, and therefore the most important, of a series of ope- 

 rations upon the judicial system of India, which will have a great 

 effect upon the state of society in that country ; and will not be 

 without influence upon the jurisprudence of England. 



Soon after his return to England in 1838, in January 1840, he 

 was elected by acclamation, representative of the City of Edinburgh ; 

 that seat he filled undisturbed till July 1847. He had already been 

 named on the Privy Council, and had accepted the office of Secretary 

 at War. He was Secretary at War, with a seat in the cabinet, about 

 two years, from 1839 to 1841. On the return of his friends to 

 power, he became, July 12, 1846, Paymaster of the Forces. 



But throughout this period of his life the great inward struggle 

 was going on within his mind between the ambition of public useful- 

 ness, of parliamentary and official distinction, and the love of letters, 

 which will rarely brook a rival on the throne, the still higher ambition, 



