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."

It is