ivalent to our common law. Therefore they have laws from
more sources than we have, exactly in the same order, grounded upon the
same authority, fundamentally fixed to be administered to the people
upon these principles.

The next thing is to show that in India there is a partition of the
powers of the government, which proves that there is no absolute power
delegated.

In every province the first person is the _Subahdar_ or _Nazim_, or
Viceroy: he has the power of the sword, and the administration of
criminal justice only. Then there is the _Dewan_, or High Steward: he
has the revenue and all exchequer causes under him, to be governed
according to the law and custom and institutions of the kingdom. The law
of inheritances, successions, and everything that relates to them, is
under the _Cadi_, in whose court these matters are tried. But this, too,
was subdivided. The Cadi could not judge, but by the advice of his
assessors. Properly in the Mahomedan law there is no appeal, only a
removal of the cause; but when there is no judgment, as none can be when
the court is not unanimous, it goes to the general assembly of all the
men of the law. There are, I will venture to say, other divisions and
subdivisions; for there are the _Kanongoes_, who hold their places for
life, to be the conservators of the canons, customs, and good usages of
the country: all these, as well as the Cadi and the Mufti, hold their
places and situations, not during the wanton pleasure of the prince, but
on permanent and fixed terms for life. All these powers of magistracy,
revenue, and law are all different, consequently not delegated in the
whole to any one person.

This is the provincial constitution, and these the laws of Bengal; which
proves, if there were no other proof, by the division of the functions
and authorities, that the supreme power of the state in the Mogul empire
did by no means delegate to any of its officers the supreme power in its
fulness. Whether or no we have delegated to Mr. Hastings the supreme
power of King and Parliament, that he should act with the plenitude of
authority of the British legislature, you are to judge.

Mr. Hastings has no refuge here. Let him run from law to law; let him
fly from the common law and the sacred institutions of the country in
which he was born; let him fly from acts of Parliament, from which his
power originated; let him plead his ignorance of them, or fly in the
face of them. Will he fly to t