"MY DEAR TOM,--I fear you will be again disposed to accuse me of treating you with neglect (not, I hope, with unkindness) in suffering week after week to pass away without returning answers to your kind letters. I have really had as much necessary writing on my hands, as even when I was member for Yorkshire. But I cannot bear to think that you are, day after day, looking out for my handwriting (as you are opening your daily packets), and looking out in vain. There have been many topics, I assure you, on which I should have been glad to communicate with you had I been able. I know not how you have felt, but I must say I felt glad by the consciousness that I was not now in a situation to be compelled to approach, and act upon, the important question of Lord John Russell's proposition. On the whole, I think I should have been favourable to it; chiefly, or rather most confidently, from trusting that we shall do away with much vice and much bribery which now prevail. I am persuaded also that the change will be for the benefit, and greatly so, of our poor West India clients. I should like to know your sentiments on the plan." _Mr. Wilberforce to the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce._ "_April 8, 1831._ "And now, my dear Samuel, we have commenced our wanderings. I write from Daniel Wilson's, who treats us with the utmost kindness." From this time Wilberforce had no house of his own, but spent the remaining years of his life with his sons and with his friends. In his own language, he "became a wanderer without any certain dwelling-place." "KENSINGTON GORE, "_April 20th._ "It must be three weeks or more since Lord Brougham, when on the woolsack, called Stephen,[64] then attending the House of Lords, quasi master (two of their description you perhaps know are required to be always present; they take down their Lordships' Bills to the House of Commons), and after expressing in very strong language his concern at having heard such an account as had reached him of the state of my finances, and more particularly of its being necessary for me to quit my own house, and become a wanderer without any certain dwelling-place, he stated that he had lately heard of my having sons and a son-in-law in the Church, and that he should be most happy to do what he could for them. Lord Milton afterwards, as I understand from Dan Sykes, expressed to Lord Brougham some kind intentions towards me, and more especially that he waived a claim or an application he had been making for the living of Rawmarsh, as soon as he learned that Lord Brougham had destined it to me. Robert would not accept any living which would not afford me a suitable residence." "_April 23, 1831._