rtunate
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 governors, who do these things against the
people: they are called dogs, and treated in that cruel manner. I quote
them to show that no governors 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 _Koran_. The next part is the
_Fetwah_, 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
[Greek: Kanon], which was brought into their country, and is well known.
The next is the _Rawaj-ul-Mulk_, or common law and custom of the
kingdom, equ