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 them, is the very person who, by the constitution of the country, is the most fettered by law.

Corruption is the true cause of the loss of all the benefits of the constitution of that country.  The practice of Asia, as the gentleman at your bar has thought fit to say, is what he holds to; the constitution he flies away from.  The question is, whether you will take the constitution of the country as your rule, or the base practices of those usurpers, robbers, and tyrants who have subverted it.  Undoubtedly, much blood, murder, false imprisonment, much peculation, cruelty, and robbery are to be found in Asia; and if, instead of going to the sacred laws of the country, he chooses to resort to the iniquitous