"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.
"You cannot conceive how little time I appear to have at my own command while passing our lives in this vagarious mode, which, however, calls forth emotions of gratitude to the Giver of all good, who has raised up for me so many and so kind friends. I ought not to forget, while a Gracious Providence has granted me a good name which is better than great riches, that many public men as upright as myself have been the victims of calumny. I myself indeed have had its envenomed shafts at times directed against me. But on the whole few men have suffered from them so little as myself."
"Bath, October 19, 1831.
"I am but poorly, and I am bothered (a vulgar phrase, but having been used in the House of Lords I may condescend to adopt it) with incessant visitors. There is a person come over to this country from the United States, of the Society of Quakers, for the excellent purpose of obtaining popularity and support for a society which has been in being for nine or ten years—the American Colonisation Society. I could not but assent to his proposal to pay me a visit at this place. The time was when such a visitor would have been no encumbrance to me. But now that he takes me in hand when I am already tired by others, (though it is only justice to him to say no one can be less intrusive or more obliging than he is), I do sink under it. My dear Samuel, it is one of the bad consequences of the plan you prescribed that I exhibit myself to you in the state of mind in which I am at the moment, though I should not otherwise have selected it for that purpose.
"Friday, 12 o'clock, October 21st.