But the luck of Macaulay’s adversaries pursued them still.  One of the leading speakers at the adjourned meeting, himself a barrister, gave another barrister the lie, and a tumult ensued which Captain Biden in vain endeavoured to calm by his favourite remedy.  “The opinion at Madras, Bombay, and Canton,” said he,—­ and in so saying he uttered the only sentence of wisdom which either evening had produced,—­“is that there is no public opinion at Calcutta but the lawyers.  And now,—­who has the presumption to call it a burlesque?—­let’s give three cheers for the Battle of Waterloo, and then I’ll propose an amendment which shall go into the whole question.”  The Chairman, who certainly had earned the vote of thanks for “his very extraordinary patience,” which Captain Biden was appropriately selected to move, contrived to get resolutions passed in favour of petitioning Parliament and the Home Government against the obnoxious Act.

The next few weeks were spent by the leaders of the movement in squabbling over the preliminaries of duels that never came off, and applying for criminal informations for libel against each other, which their beloved Supreme Court very judiciously refused to grant; but in the course of time the petitions were signed, and an agent was selected, who undertook to convey them to England.  On the 22nd of March, 1838, a Committee of inquiry into the operation of the Act was moved for in the House of Commons; but there was nothing in the question which tempted Honourable Members to lay aside their customary indifference with regard to Indian controversies, and the motion fell through without a division.  The House allowed the Government to have its own way in the matter; and any possible hesitation on the part of the Ministers was borne down by the emphasis with which Macaulay claimed their support.  “I conceive,” he wrote, “that the Act is good in itself, and that the time for passing it has been well chosen.  The strongest reason, however, for passing it is the nature of the opposition which it has experienced.  The organs of that opposition repeated every day that the English were the conquerors, and the lords of the country, the dominant race; the electors of the House of Commons, whose power extends both over the Company at home, and over the Governor-General in Council here.  The constituents of the British Legislature, they told us, were not to be bound by laws made by any inferior authority.  The firmness with which the Government withstood the idle outcry of two or three hundred people, about a matter with which they had nothing to do, was designated as insolent defiance of public opinion.  We were enemies of freedom, because we would not suffer a small white aristocracy to domineer over millions.  How utterly at variance these principles are with reason, with justice, with the honour of the British Government, and with the dearest interests of the Indian people, it is unnecessary for me to point out.  For myself, I can only say that, if the Government is to be conducted on such principles, I am utterly disqualified, by all my feelings and opinions, from bearing any part in it, and cannot too soon resign my place to some person better fitted to hold it.”