4

"In such manner Share Behraum, the chief of a tribe, was along with me. And he left me in the hour of action; and he united with the enemy, and he drew forth his sword against me. And at length, my salt, which he had eaten, seized upon him; and he again fled to me for refuge, and humbled himself before me. As he was a man of illustrious descent, and of bravery, and of experience, I covered my eyes from his evil actions; and I magnified him, and I exalted him to a superiour rank, and I pardoned his disloyalty in consideration of his valour.

"Eleventhly: My children, and my relations, and my associates, and my neighbours, and such as had been connected with me, all these I distinguished in the days of my fortune and prosperity, and I paid unto them their due. And with respect to my family, I rent not asunder the bands of consanguinity and mercy; and I issued not commands to slay them, or to bind them with chains.

"And I dealt with every man, whatever the judgment I had formed of him, according to my own opinion of his worth. As I had seen much of prosperity and adversity, and had acquired knowledge and experience, I conducted myself with caution, and with policy, towards my friends and towards my enemies.

"Twelfthly: Soldiers, whether associates or adversaries, I held in esteem; those, who sell their permanent happiness to perishable honour, and throw themselves into the field of slaughter, and battle, and hazard their lives in the hour of danger.

"And the man, who drew his sword on the side of my enemy, and committed hostilities against me, and preserved his fidelity to his master, him I greatly honoured : and when such a man came unto me, knowing his worth, I classed him with my faithful associates; and I respected and valued his fidelity and his attachment.

"And the soldier, who forgot his duty and his honour, and in the hour of action turned his face from his master, and came in unto me, I considered as the most detestable of

men.

"And in the war between Touktummish Khaun, his

ameers forgot their duty to Touktummish, who was their master and my foe, and sent proposals and wrote letters unto me. And I uttered execrations upon them, because unmindful of that, which they owed to their lord, they had thrown aside their honour and their duty, and came in unto me. I said unto myself, what fidelity have they observed to their liege lord? what fidelity will they show unto me?

"And, behold, it was known unto me by experience, that every empire, which is not established in morality and religion, nor strengthened by regulations and laws, from that empire all order, grandeur, and power shall pass away. And that empire may be likened unto a naked man, who, when exposed to view, commandeth the eye of modesty to be covered; and it is like unto a house, which hath neither roof nor gates, nor defences; into which, whoever willeth, may enter unmolested.

“THEREFORE, I established the foundation of my empire on the morality and the religion of Islaum; and by regulations and laws, I gave it stability. And by laws and by regulations I executed every business and every transaction, that came before me in the course of my government.”—

I need not read any further, or I might show your lordships the noble principles, the grand, bold, and manly maxims, the resolution to abstain from oppression himself, and to crush it in the governours under him, to be found in this book, which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to resort to às containing, what he calls, arbitrary principles.

But it is not in this instance only, that I must do justice to the East. I assert, that their morality is equal to ours, in whatever regards the duties of governours, fathers, and superiours; and I challenge the world to show, in any mo dern European book, more true morality and wisdom than is to be found in the writings of Asiatick men in high trust, and who have been counsellours to princes. If this be the true morality of Asia, as I affirm, and can prove, that it is, the plea founded on Mr. Hastings's geographical morality is annihilated.

I little regard the theories of travellers, where they do not relate the facts, on which they are founded. I have two

instances of facts, attested by Tavernier, a traveller of power and consequence, which are very material to be mentioned here, because they show, that, in some of the instances recorded, in which the princes of the country have used any of those cruel and barbarous executions, which make us execrate them, it has been upon governours, who have abused their trust, and that this very oriental authority, to which Mr. Hastings appeals, would have condemned him to a dreadful punishment. I thank God, and I say it from my heart, that even for his enormous offences there neither is, nor can be, any thing like such punishments. God forbid, that we should not as much detest out of the way, mad, furious, and unequal punishments, as we detest enormous and abominable crimes; because a severe and cruel penalty for a crime of a light nature is as bad and iniquitous as the crime, which it pretends to punish. As the instances I allude to are curious, and as they go to the principles of Mr. Hastings's defence, I shall beg to quote them.

It

The first is upon a governour, who did, what Mr. Hastings says he has a power delegated to him to do; he levied a tax without the consent of his master. "Some years after my departure from Com, (says Tavernier,) the governour had, of his own accord, and without any communication with the king, laid a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought into the city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls and bridges of the town. was towards the end of the year 1632, that the event, I am going to relate, happened. The king being informed of the impost, which the governour had laid upon the fruit, ordered him to be brought in chains to court. The king ordered him to be exposed to the people at one of the gates of the palace then he commanded the son to pluck off the mustachios of his father, to cut off his nose and ears, to put out his eyes, and then cut off his head. The king then told the son to go and take possession of the government of his father, saying, See, that you govern better than this deceased dog, or thy doom shall be a death more exquisitely tormenting."

:

My lords, you are struck with horrour, I am struck with horrour, at this punishment. I do not relate it to approve of

such a barbarous act; but to prove to your lordships, that whatever power the princes of that country have, they are jealous of it to such a degree, that, if any of their governours should levy a tax, even the most insignificant, and for the best purposes, he meets with a cruel punishment. I do not justify the punishment; but the severity of it shows, how little of their power the princes of that country mean to delegate to their servants, the whole of which the gentleman at your bar says was delegated to him.

There is another case, a very strong one, and that is the case of presents, which I understand is a custom admitted throughout Asia in all their governments. It was of a per

"One

son, who was raised to a high office; no business was suffered to come before him without a previous present. morning, the king being at this time on a hunting party, the nazar came to the tent of the king, but was denied entrance by the meter, or master of the wardrobe. About the same time the king came forth, and, seeing the nazar, commanded his officers to take off the bonnet from the head of that dog, that took gifts from his people; and that he should sit three days bareheaded in the heat of the sun, and as many nights in the air. Afterwards he caused him to be chained about the neck and arms, and condemned him to perpetual imprisonment, with a mamoudy a day for his maintenance; but he died for grief within eight days after he was put in pri

son."

Do I mean, by reading this to your lordships, to express or intimate an approbation, either of the cruelty of the punishment, or of the coarse barbarism of the language? neither one nor the other. I produce it to your lordships to prove to you from this dreadful example the horrour which that government felt, when any person subject to it assumed to himself a privilege to receive presents. The cruelty and severity exercised by these princes is not levelled at the poor, unfortunate people, who complain at their gates, but, to use their own barbarous expression, to dogs, that impose taxes and take presents.-God forbid, I should use that language. The people, when they complain, are not called dogs and sent away, but the governours, who do these things against the

people; they are called dogs, and treated in that cruel manner. I quote them to show, that no governours in the East, upon any principle of their constitution, or any good practice of their government, can lay arbitrary imposts, or receive presents. When they escape, it is probably by bribery, by corruption, by creating factions for themselves in the seraglio, in the country, in the army, in the divan. But how they escape such punishments, is not my business to inquire; it is enough for me, that the constitution disavows them, that the princes of the country disavow them; that they revile them with the most horrible expressions, and inflict dreadful punishments on them, when they are called to answer for these offences.

Thus much concerning the Mahomedan laws of Asia. That the people of Asia have no laws, rights, or liberty, is a doctrine, that wickedly is to be disseminated through this country. But I again assert, every Mahomedan government is, by its principles, a government of law.

I shall now state from what is known of the government of India, that it does not, and cannot delegate (as Mr. Hastings has frequently declared) the whole of its powers and authority to him. If they are absolute, as they must be in the supreme power, they ought to be arbitrary in none; they were, however, never absolute in any of their subordinate parts, and I will prove it by the known provincial constitutions of Hindostan, which are all Mahomedan, the laws of which are as clear, as explicit, and as learned as ours.

The first foundation of their law is the Khorân. The next part is the fetfa, or adjudged cases by proper authority, well known there. The next, the written interpretations of the principles of jurisprudence; and their books are as numerous upon the principles of jurisprudence, as in any country in Europe. The next part of their law is what they call the kanon, that is, a positive rule equivalent to acts of parliament, the law of the several powers of the country, taken from the Greek word KANON, which was brought into their country, and is well known. The next is the rage ul mulk, or common law and custom of the kingdom, equivalent to our common law. Therefore they have laws from more