"Then the Quakers, five in number. Never was there such a rout. They had absolutely nothing to say. Every charge against Penn came out as clear as any case at the Old Bailey. They had nothing to urge but what was true enough, that he looked worse in my History than he would have looked on a general survey of his whole life. But that is not my fault. I wrote the History of four years during which he was exposed to great temptations; during which he was the favourite of a bad king, and an active solicitor in a most corrupt court. His character was injured by his associations. Ten years before, or ten years later, he would have made a much better figure. But was I to begin my book ten years earlier or ten years later for William Penn's sake? The Quakers were extremely civil. So was I. They complimented me on my courtesy and candour."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Journal entry (5 February 1849), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), pp. 251–252
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a nineteenth century British poet, historian and Whig politician.
208 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay →
Related Quotes
"But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will flu…"
"It is our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes and follies, was a great blessing…"
"He William Temple] was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation,—a man of the world amongst men of letters,…"
"The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to …"
"'It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation …"
"It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good go…"
"An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia. The smallest actual good is better than the most magnif…"
"To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of th…"
"A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no compromise. A pub…"
"Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be."