My Lords, I have only further to inform your Lordships that these Institutes of Timour ought to be very well known to Mr. Hastings.  He ought to have known that this prince never claimed arbitrary power; that the principles he adopted were to govern by law, to repress the oppressions of his inferior governors, to recognize in the nobility the respect due to their rank, and in the people the protection to which they were by law entitled.  This book was published by Major Davy, and revised by Mr. White.  The Major was an excellent Orientalist; he was secretary to Mr. Hastings, to whom, I believe, he dedicated this book.  I have inquired of persons the most conversant with the Arabic and Oriental languages, and they are clearly of opinion that there is internal evidence to prove it of the age of Tamerlane; and he must be the most miserable of critics, who, reading this work with attention, does not see, that, if it was not written by this very great monarch himself, it was at least written by some person in his court and under his immediate inspection.  Whether, therefore, this work be the composition of Tamerlane, or whether it was written by some persons of learning near him, through whom he meant to give the world a just idea of his manners, maxims, and government, it is certainly as good authority as Mr. Hastings’s Defence, which he has acknowledged to have been written by other people.

From the Tartarian I shall now proceed to the later Mahometan conquerors of Hindostan:  for it is fit that I should show your Lordships the wickedness of pretending that the people of India have no laws or rights.  A great proportion of the people are Mahometans; and Mahometans are so far from having no laws or rights, that, when you name a Mahometan, you name a man governed by law and entitled to protection.  Mr. Hastings caused to be published, and I am obliged to him for it, a book called “The Hedaya”:  it is true that he has himself taken credit for the work, and robbed Nobkissin of the money to pay for it; but the value of a book is not lessened because a man stole it.  Will you believe, my Lords, that a people having no laws, no rights, no property, no honor, would be at the trouble of having so many writers on jurisprudence?  And yet there are, I am sure, at least a thousand eminent Mahometan writers upon law, who have written far more voluminous works than are known in the Common Law of England, and I verily believe more voluminous than the writings of the Civilians themselves.  That this should be done by a people who have no property is so perfectly ridiculous as scarcely to require refutation; but I shall endeavor to refute it, and without troubling you a great deal.

First, then, I am to tell you that the Mahometans are a people amongst whom the science of jurisprudence is much studied and cultivated; that they distinguish it into the law of the Koran and its authorized commentaries,—­into the Fetwah, which is the judicial judgments and reports of adjudged cases,—­into the Canon, which is the regulations made by the emperor for the sovereign authority in the government of their dominions,—­and, lastly, into the Rawaj-ul-Mulk, or custom and usage, the common law of the country, which prevails independent of any of the former.