Am I, in
praising this Mahometan law, applauding the principle of elective
sovereignty? No, my Lords, I know the mischiefs which have attended it;
I know that it has shaken the thrones of most of the sovereigns of the
Mussulman religion; but I produce the law as the clearest proof that
such a sovereign cannot be supposed to have an arbitrary power over the
property and persons of those who elect him, and who have an
acknowledged right to resist and dethrone him, if he does not afford
them protection.
I have now gone through what I undertook to prove,--that Mr. Hastings,
with all his Indian Council, who have made up this volume of arbitrary
power, are not supported by the laws of the Moguls, by the laws of the
Gentoos, by the Mahometan laws, or by any law, custom, or usage which
has ever been recognized as legal and valid.
But, my Lords, the prisoner defends himself by example; and, good God!
what are the examples which he has chosen? Not the local usages and
constitutions of Oude or of any other province; not the general practice
of a respectable emperor, like Akbar, which, if it would not fatigue
your Lordships, I could show to be the very reverse of this man's. No,
my Lords, the prisoner, his learned counsel here, and his unlearned
Cabinet Council, who wrote this defence, have ransacked the tales of
travellers for examples, and have selected materials from that mass of
loose remarks and crude conceptions, to prove that the natives of India
have neither rights, laws, orders, or distinction.
Pages:
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274