t title, by which it may rule others at its
pleasure. By conquest, which is a more immediate designation of the hand
of God, the conqueror succeeds to all the painful duties and
subordination to the power of God which belonged to the sovereign whom
he has displaced, just as if he had come in by the positive law of some
descent or some election. To this at least he is strictly bound: he
ought to govern them as he governs his own subjects. But every wise
conqueror has gone much further than he was bound to go. It has been his
ambition and his policy to reconcile the vanquished to his fortune, to
show that they had gained by the change, to convert their momentary
suffering into a long benefit, and to draw from the humiliation of his
enemies an accession to his own glory. This has been so constant a
practice, that it is to repeat the histories of all politic conquerors
in all nations and in all times; and I will not so much distrust your
Lordships' enlightened and discriminating studies and correct memories
as to allude to one of them. I will only show you that the Court of
Directors, under whom he served, has adopted that idea,--that they
constantly inculcated it to him, and to all the servants,--that they run
a parallel between their own and the native government, and, supposing
it to be very evil, did not hold it up as an example to be followed, but
as an abuse to be corrected,--that they never made it a question,
whether India is to be improved by English law and liberty, or English
law and liberty vitiated by Indian corruption.

No, my Lords, this arbitrary power is not to be had by conquest. Nor can
any sovereign have it by succession; for no man can succeed to fraud,
rapine, and violence. Neither by compact, covenant, or submission,--for
men cannot covenant themselves out of their rights and their
duties,--nor by any other means, can arbitrary power be conveyed to any
man. Those who give to others such rights perform acts that are void as
they are given,--good indeed and valid only as tending to subject
themselves, and those who act with them, to the Divine displeasure;
because morally there can be no such power. Those who give and those who
receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is
bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its
face to the world. It is a crime to bear it, when it can be rationally
shaken off. Nothing but absolute impotence can justify men in not