For I am not again to tell your Lordships, that arbitrary
power is treason in the law,--that to mention it with law is to commit a
contradiction in terms. They cannot exist in concert; they cannot hold
together for a moment.
Let us now hear what the prisoner says. "The sovereignty which they [the
subahdars, or viceroys of the Mogul empire] assumed, it fell to my lot,
very unexpectedly, to exert; and whether or not such power, or powers of
that nature, were delegated to me by any provisions of any act of
Parliament I confess myself too little of a lawyer to pronounce. I only
know that the acceptance of the sovereignty of Benares, &c., is not
acknowledged or admitted by any act of Parliament; and yet, by the
particular interference of the majority of the Council, the Company is
clearly and indisputably seized of that sovereignty. If, therefore, the
_sovereignty_ of Benares, as ceded to us by the Vizier, have _any rights
whatever_ annexed to it, and be not a mere empty word without meaning,
those rights must be such as are held, countenanced, and established by
the law, custom, and usage of the Mogul empire, and not by the
provisions of any British act of Parliament hitherto enacted. _Those
rights_, and none other, I have been the involuntary instrument of
enforcing.
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