“We know that India cannot have a free Government.  But she may have the next best thing—­a firm and impartial despotism.  The worst state in which she can possibly be placed is that in which the memorialists would place her.  They call on us to recognise them as a privileged order of freemen in the midst of slaves. it was for the purpose of averting this great evil that Parliament, at the same time at which it suffered Englishmen to settle in India, armed us with those large powers which, in my opinion, we ill deserve to possess, if we have, not the spirit to use them now.”

Macaulay had made two mistakes.  He had yielded to the temptation of imputing motives, a habit which the Spectator newspaper has pronounced to be his one intellectual vice, finely adding that it is “the vice of rectitude;” and he had done worse still, for he had challenged his opponents to a course of agitation.  They responded to the call.  After preparing the way by a string of communications to the public journals, in to which their objections to the Act were set forth at enormous length, and with as much point and dignity as can be obtained by a copious use of italics and capital letters, they called a public meeting, the proceedings at which were almost too ludicrous for description.  “I have seen,” said one of the speakers, “at a Hindoo festival, a naked dishevelled figure, his face painted with grotesque colours, and his long hair besmeared with dirt and ashes.  His tongue was pierced with an iron bar, and his breast was scorched by the fire from the burning altar which rested on his stomach.  This revolting figure, covered with ashes, dirt, and bleeding voluntary wounds, may the next moment ascend the Sudder bench, and in a suit between a Hindoo and an Englishman think it an act of sanctity to decide against law in favour of the professor of the true faith.”  Another gentleman, Mr. Longueville Clarke, reminded “the tyrant” that

 There yawns the sack, and yonder rolls the sea.

“Mr. Macaulay may treat this as an idle threat; but his knowledge of history will supply him with many examples of what has occurred when resistance has been provoked by milder instances of despotism than the decimation of a people.”  This pretty explicit recommendation to lynch a Member of Council was received with rapturous applause.

At length arose a Captain Biden, who spoke as follows:  “Gentlemen, I come before you in the character of a British seaman, and on that ground claim your attention for a few moments.  Gentlemen, there has been much talk during the evening of laws, and regulations, and rights, and liberties; but you all seem to have forgotten that this is the anniversary of the glorious Battle of Waterloo.  I beg to propose, and I call on the statue of Lord Cornwallis and yourselves to join me in three cheers for the Duke of Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo.”  The audience, who by this time were pretty well convinced that no grievance which could possibly result under the Black Act could equal the horrors of a crowd in the Town Hall of Calcutta during the latter half of June, gladly caught at the diversion, and made noise enough to satisfy even the gallant orator.  The business was brought to a hurried close, and the meeting was adjourned till the following week.