took a part in public affairs, but his parliamentary career was possibly limited because of his ongoing health problems. In January 1811 he wrote that ‘if I could support sitting up at night I would become a Member of the House of Commons, but I must relinquish all thoughts of this during the winter’. On two occasions he put himself forward as a candidate for Parliament. In 1812 he was persuaded to stand in a by-election for Lewes, but withdrew realising his opponent had more support. Fourteen years later he was sufficiently recovered from a recent ‘severe illness’ to sit in Parliament for one Session (from 1826 to 1830) as Member for Saltash as a Whig. However, his health remained ‘feeble’ and he rarely attended the House. He made no recorded speeches but voted several times on anti-slavery and other issues. Abolition of slavery In addition to his biblical work, Macaulay's chief occupation was to support the campaign for the Abolition of Slavery campaign, both in British overseas territories and further afield, notably France. He became a member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and worked closely with William Wilberforce, his brother Zachary, and (until the quarrel in 1820), his brother-in-law Thomas Babington. He accompanied the Duke of Wellington to the Congress of Verona in 1822, where Britain submitted proposals for the entire Abolition of the Slave Trade. Macaulay attended in an unofficial capacity and represented Wilberforce and Zachary. They valued his fluency in French and Italian and his personal friendship with Wellington, developed over twenty years earlier during their military campaigning in India. Macaulay shared accommodation with the Quaker abolitionist William Allen and had several conversations with Wellington, urging him to secure agreement from the French government to end the French slave trade in practice as well as theory. The French trade had been officially abolished in 1818 but there had been virtually no enforcement, and in fact it had expanded. Unfortunately whilst Wellington agreed with Macaulay and Allen's aims, his view was that securing agreement would be impossible as the French were completed uninterest in abolition. Their efforts were ultimately fruitless. Family Macaulay never married and despite the rift with his brother-in-law Thomas Babington was much loved by his relatives. Sir George Otto Trevelyan, who was born too late to know him personally, but was certainly acquainted with many who did wrote that