Macaulay did on entering Parliament, he would have had a taste of jail,
the hulks, or the pillory. So alert had the Government agents been for
sedition that to stick one's tongue in his cheek at a member of the
Cabinet was considered fully as bad as poaching, both being heinous
offenses before God and man. Persecution was in the air and tyranny
stalked abroad.

But tyranny is self-limiting. If laws are too severe, there will surely
come a time when they will not be observed, and history shows that the men
who have introduced the guillotine ended their careers in its embrace.

A change had come in England. The Tories were being jostled from their
seats, and the Whigs were just coming into power. Liberalism was abroad in
the land, and surely the time had come when a strong man might speak his
mind.

Macaulay was by nature a protester; he was "agin 'em"; and when he chose a
subject for his maiden speech he was not only sincere, but exceeding
politic. He guessed the lay of the land, and knew the direction of the
wind. Heresy was popular.

His address was in favor of an act removing the legal disabilities of
Jews. It was a plea for liberty, and such was the vigor, power and vivid
personality he threw into the address that he astonished the House and
brought in the loungers from the cloakrooms.

It was his only speech during the session. Efforts were made to get him on
his feet again, but he was too wise to lend the battery of his mind to any
commonplace theme. Only a subject such as might stir men's souls could
tempt him.