"I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation
that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls,
and will turn up nothing, I have a glimpse of freedom, of
becoming a gentleman at large, but I am put off from day
to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither accepted
nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful
suspense. Guess what an absorbing state I feel it. I am
not conscious of the existence of friends, present or absent.
The East India directors alone can be that thing to me. I
have just learned that nothing will be decided this week.
Why the next? Why any week?"

But the "grand wheel" was really turning, to some purpose, and a few
days later, April 6, 1825, he joyfully wrote to Barton,--

"My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my
recent emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand,
much more mind, to compose a letter, I am free, B.B.,--free
as air!

"'The little bird that wings the sky
Knows no such liberty,'

I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. I
came home forever!"

The quality of the generosity of the East India directors was not
strained in Lamb's case. It should be recorded as an agreeable
commercial phenomenon that these officials, men of business acting in "a