that Sharp was able to accumulate. However, it must have tested the depth of his anti-slavery sympathies, as the entire West India trade was based on the use of plantation slaves. A commentator described Sharp at about the age of 30 as: Sharp made so much money as a merchant, and through his investments and banking connections, that he eventually left £250,000 in his will. He was once described as being "one of the most considerable merchants in London". His acquired knowledge of the shipping business, for instance, enabled him to give crucial support and advice to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1804 when the poet was about to leave England for health reasons. As a respected London critic, Sharp also gave assistance and encouragement to Coleridge and Wordsworth, among many others, and although much of their correspondence with Sharp has been sold overseas, some may still be seen in the poets' collected works. Powers as a conversationalist Despite his modest roots, Richard Sharp's exceptional cleverness and powers of conversation gained him acceptance in the highest social circles and led to him acquiring a lasting sobriquet. Although he achieved distinction in many areas, he seems to have made most impact simply by his basic human kindness and wisdom, as quotes from some of those who knew him well illustrate: John William Ward, later Earl of Dudley, also a man of immense personal wealth similarly renowned as a talented, quick-witted, humorous man with a tenacious memory, described Richard Sharp as, Francis Horner, an original contributor to the Edinburgh Review and a barrister before he turned to politics, met Sharp when he came to London: Horner later wrote to Lady Mackintosh in 1805 in the same admiring tones, complaining that he simply could not get enough of Sharp's company and telling her: "Sharp I respect and love more and more every day; he has every day new talents and new virtues to show." Her husband, Sir James Mackintosh, was one of few people with which Sharp felt able to discuss metaphysics. He expressed the view that Richard Sharp had made greater influence on his thinking than almost any other person. In Byron's opinion Sharp was one who had "lived much with the best – Fox, Horne Tooke, Windham, Fitzpatrick and all the agitators of other times and tongues." Macaulay was similarly impressed and commented in a letter to his sister before leaving for