for some of the frantic outbursts, which in their brutality recalled certain flights of Burke's oratory in Westminster Hall.
Nevertheless, in September of this very year, 1836, Macaulay wrote to the Court of Directors a despatch in which he stoutly contended, not only that 'we acted wisely when we passed the law on the subject of the Press,' but also that 'we should act most unwisely if we wore now to repeal that law.' His own estimate of the limited influence of the Press in India, whether for good or evil, was amply justified by after-events. The agitation against the Black Act was presently transferred from Calcutta to the House of Commons. In March, 1838, a Committee of Inquiry was moved for; but the Melbourne Ministry rallied to the support of their colleague in India, and the motion had to be dropped[1]'.
In the cause of education Macaulay, as President of the Committee of Public Instruction, found a willing and useful patron in the new Governor-General. Under Lord William Bentinck the English language had been made the vehicle of instruction for Natives in the higher schools, the one door to preferment in the public service. By way of spurring the ambition of Native scholars to gain more than a smattering of Western culture, Lord Auckland founded a certain number of scholarships for the principal Government schools. At the same time he would not ignore the claim of the millions to learn some rudiments of
- ↑ Life of Lord Macaulay.
