Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/81

Rh American War. The Duke thought proper to ridicule the English Ambassador, and, being unable to extract a laugh, said, "What, Sir, do you never laugh?" "Seldom, Monseigneur," said Sir Joseph.

"But, Sir, if our fleet should attack England?"

"Alors, Monseigneur, je rirois," was the quiet reply.

The great slavery question was beginning to occupy Hannah's mind. She was already a friend of Lady Middleton, who had first inspired William Wilberforce with the idea of his great work in life; and on going to make her annual visit to Mrs. Garrick in the winter of 1787, she first heard of the Bill that was to be brought into Parliament for its abolition.

Her mind was deeply stirred, and the interest she took in the matter led her into intimacies of a more decidedly religious class than her former friends belonged to—those in fact who had been strongly affected by the Wesleyan leaven without joining the Methodist body, and thus may be considered as the earliest of the Evangelical School.

Besides Mr. Wilberforce himself, then aged twenty-eight, and in the full vigour of the mental powers so far surpassing his bodily strength, she also added to her list of intimate friends the Reverend John Newton. This remarkable man, now chiefly remembered as the correspondent of the poet Cowper, had been in early youth a sailor, and even captain of a slave-ship. After several remarkable escapes, he had become devotedly