our own to every other country in the world! but if we go to India with an idea of the mean, degraded state of the people that we are to govern, and especially if we go with these impressions at an immature age, we know, that, according to the ordinary course of human nature, we shall not treat persons well whom we have learnt to despise.  We know that people whom we suppose to have neither laws or rights will not be treated by us as a people who have laws and rights.  This error, therefore, for our sake, for your sake, for the sake of the Indian public, and for the sake of all those who shall hereafter go in any station to India, I think it necessary to disprove in every point.

I mean to prove the direct contrary of everything that has been said on this subject by the prisoner’s counsel, or by himself.  I mean to prove that the people of India have laws, rights, and immunities; that they have property, movable and immovable, descendible as well as occasional; that they have property held for life, and that they have it as well secured to them by the laws of their country as any property is secured in this country; that they feel for honor, not only as much as your Lordships can feel, but with a more exquisite and poignant sense than any people upon earth; and that, when punishments are inflicted, it is not the lash they feel, but the disgrace:  in short, I mean to prove that every word which Montesquieu has taken from idle and inconsiderate travellers is absolutely false.

The people of India are divided into three kinds:  the original natives of the country, commonly called Gentoos; the descendants of the Persians and Arabians, who are Mahometans; and the descendants of the Moguls, who originally had a religion of their own, but are now blended with the other inhabitants.

The primeval law of that country is the Gentoo law; and I refer your Lordships to Mr. Halhed’s translation of that singular code,—­a work which I have read with all the care that such an extraordinary view of human affairs and human constitutions deserves.  I do not know whether Mr. Halhed’s compilation is in evidence before your Lordships, but I do know that it is good authority on the Gentoo law.  Mr. Hastings, who instructed his counsel to assert that the people have “no rights, no law,” ought to be well acquainted with this work, because he claimed for a while the glory of the compilation, although Nobkissin, as your Lordships remember, was obliged to pay the expense.  This book, a compilation of probably the most ancient laws in the world, if we except the Mosaic, has in it the duty of the magistrate and the duty of all ranks of subjects most clearly and distinctly ascertained; and I will give up the whole cause, if there is, from one end to the other of this code, any sort of arbitrary power claimed or asserted on the part of the magistrate, or any declaration that the people have no rights of property.  No:  it asserts the direct contrary.