While on this employment he happened to light upon a valuable collection of books, and rapidly made himself master of the principal European languages, which he spoke and wrote with a facility surprising in one who had acquired them within a few leagues of Cape Comorin.
There was another son of John Macaulay, who in force and elevation of character stood out among his brothers, and who was destined to make for himself no ordinary career.

The path which Zachary Macaulay chose to tread did not lead to wealth, or worldly success, or indeed to much worldly happiness.

Born in 1768, he was sent out at the age of sixteen by a Scotch house of business as bookkeeper to an estate in Jamaica, of which he soon rose to be sole manager.

His position brought him into the closest possible contact with negro slavery.

His mind was not prepossessed against the system of society which he found in the West Indies.