, they are secured from the resentment of the sovereign: for
he cannot touch them. Even their kings are not always vested with a real
supreme power, but the government is in some degree republican.

To bring this point a little nearer home,--since we are challenged thus,
since we are led into Asia, since we are called upon to make good our
charge on the principles of the governments there, rather than on those
of our own country, (which I trust your Lordships will oblige him
finally to be governed by, puffed up as he is with the insolence of
Asia,)--the nearest to us of the governments he appeals to is that of
the Grand Seignior, the Emperor of the Turks.--_He_ an arbitrary power!
Why, he has not the supreme power of his own country. Every one knows
that the Grand Seignior is exalted high in _titles_, as our prerogative
lawyers exalt an abstract sovereign,--and he cannot be exalted higher in
our books. I say he is destitute of the first character of sovereign
power: he cannot lay a tax upon his people. The next part in which he
misses of a sovereign power is, that he cannot dispose of the life, of
the property, or of the liberty of any of his subjects, but by what is
called the _fetwah_, or sentence of the law. He cannot declare peace or
war without the same sentence of the law: so much is _he_, more than
European sovereigns, a subject of strict law, that he cannot declare war
or peace without it. Then, if he can neither touch life nor property,
if he cannot lay a tax on his subjects, or declare peace or war, I leave
it to your Lordships' judgment, whether he can be called, according to
the principles of that constitution, an arbitrary power. A Turkish
sovereign, if he should be judged by the body of that law to have acted
against its principles, (unless he happens to be secured by a faction of
the soldiery,) is liable to be deposed on the sentence of that law, and
his successor comes in under the strict limitations of the ancient law
of that country: neither can he hold his place, dispose of his
succession, or take any one step whatever, without being bound by law.
Thus much may be said, when gentlemen talk of the affairs of Asia, as to
the nearest of Asiatic sovereigns: and he is more Asiatic than European,
he is a Mahomedan sovereign; and no Mahomedan is born who can exercise
any arbitrary power at all, consistently with their constitution;
insomuch that this chief magistrate, who is the highest executive power
among