With a temper which in the intercourse of society was proof against being ruffled by any possible treatment of any conceivable subject, to the end of his life he showed faint signs of irritation if anyone ventured in his presence to hint that Sierra Leone was unhealthy.
On his return to England he was appointed Secretary to the Company, and was married at Bristol on the 26th of August, 1799.

A most close union it was, and, (though in latter years he became fearfully absorbed in the leading object of his existence, and ceased in a measure to be the companion that he had been,) his love for his wife, and deep trust and confidence in her, never failed.

They took a small house in Lambeth for the first twelve months.

When Mrs.Macaulay was near her confinement, Mrs.Babington, who belonged to the school of matrons who hold that the advantage of country air outweighs that of London doctors, invited her sister-in-law to Rothley Temple; and there, in a room panelled from ceiling to floor, like every corner of the ancient mansion, with oak almost black from age,--looking eastward across the park and southward through an ivy-shaded window into a little garden,--Lord Macaulay was born.

It was on the 25th of October 1800, the day of St.Crispin, the anniversary of Agincourt, (as he liked to say,) that he opened his eyes on a world which he was destined so thoroughly to learn and so intensely to enjoy.