The particular condescension shown to me by the noble lord whose name has been so indecently used since my arrival, left no doubt in my mind, that it was possible his lordship's name could, with his knowledge, have been used to add authority to that libel: I rested satisfied under that conviction until this article was exhibited; then not knowing how conducive that high authority, so daringly cited, might have been to the procuring the sense of mankind, which I now first heard would be a ground urged against me, I caused application to be made to his lordship, that I might be able expressly to contradict his having termed the execution of Nundcomar a legal murder, if the fact was not founded in truth. This I the rather did, as I had learnt that the person generally supposed to be the author of that pamphlet had the credit of having means of good information. That noble lord has declared, that so far from using such an expression, he has never formed any opinion on the subject; that the assertion is an absolute falsehood, and has authorized the contradiction of it, whenever it is made, and wherever it has or is likely to gain credit.

The public has sustained a general and great loss by the death of sir William Blackstone; and I have particularly to lament that I cannot furnish the House with a living declaration from him; but I have proofs as strong, that his memory in this instance has been grossly insulted, by presuming to falsify that which was his opinion when living; for in a letter dated 30th Jan. 1779, which I had the honour to receive from that polite and accurate oracle of law, by which he introduced a gentleman to me, he concludes thus: "I have the more easily yielded to give him this letter, as it gives me an opportunity of congratulating you on the high reputation which yourself and your colleagues in office have acquired among all dispassionate men here in England, by your prudent and impartial administration of justice on many very delicate and important occasions. That your present situation may prove as beneficial in the end, as it has been honourable to you in the beginning, is the sincere wish of, dear Sir, your most obedient servant, W. BLACKSTONE." His works and opinions are now amongst the best authorities in our courts of law.

dence with lord Walsingham, lord Ashburton, and the late Attorney-general (Mr. Wallace,) to prove their sentiments to be in direct contradiction to this supposed sense of mankind; because I did not know that their names had been made use of to support the same scandal; but as an hon. member of the House has lately informed me the name of lord Ashburton has been used to the same purpose, I cannot refrain from citing a passage from a letter of his to me, dated Jan. 5th, 1776, it being so expressly to this point. His words are: "The publication of the trials has been of use, as it has obviated abundance of ridiculous and groundless stories., I see nothing in the proceedings to disapprove of, except that you seem to have wasted more time in the discussion of the privileges of ambassadors than so ridiculous a claim deserved."

These were not men who would hold correspondence with judges guilty of a legal murder; these were not men who would be volunteers in applauding such conduct. They were great lawyers in their day; they are gone, and almost a new generation has succeeded them. Though it has been given out authoritatively, and propagated in print to prejudice my cause, I shall not, till I am convinced by fatal experience, be induced to believe that the gentlemen of the same profession in this House can so totally differ in opinion from them as to have reprobated my conduct, and prejudged me unheard. I do profess myself to have had a particular reliance on that part of the House, not from any mean expectation, that because I had been of their body I should be supported by it: I know the liberality of it too well to entertain so vain a wish. I know, if I be found a rotten member, I shall be cut off and thrown with detestation from it. My defence depending chiefly on matters of law, my reliance is on no personal favour, but their professional ability to determine on matters of law, and their characteristic habit, not to condemn, not to reprobate without a hearing: Audi alteram partem is a maxim acknowledged to be equitable by all who know what justice is:-but it is engraven on the heart of every honest lawyer. If I am entitled to it from the merits of my case, I shall have the support, not of the corps, but of individuals: they will despise the arts made use of to deprive me of it. Their characters are above the imputation of sacri

special regulations ordained by that act), does not depend on any authority conveyed to his Majesty by the 13 Geo. 3, and that it is no otherwise, as to the present question, an enabling statute, than by removing the then existing courts in Calcutta, during the continuance of which, under the charter of Geo. 2, his Majesty could not create any new court; but they being actually thereby abolished, it became lawful for his Majesty to grant a new charter of justice, and republish his laws in that town as his predecessors had done: And as the territorial acquisitions of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, really were, and were by act of Parliament stated to be, in the East India Company; and more particularly as the Act of the 13 Geo. 3, assumed a civil jurisdiction over certain inhabitants of those provinces described by that Act: the legislature had thereby recognized those provinces to be part of the dominions of the Crown; and the King in fact has done no more than exercise his undoubted prerogative through those dominions, by giving a criminal jurisdiction over the persons answering to the same descriptions as those over whom the statute had before exercised a civil jurisdiction. If it was not contrary to justice that the parliament should assume a right of civil jurisdiction, it could not be contrary to justice in the Crown to grant a co-extensive criminal jurisdiction: Both rights are founded on the same claim. On these grounds I contend that his Majesty's prerogative was legally exerted in granting the personal criminal jurisdiction in the provinces at large, without the aid of the act. But with respect to the local jurisdiction in the town of Calcutta, though I equally contend that the authority of the 13 Geo. 3, was not necessary to the legality of it; yet if that had been necessary, it will appear by the words of the charter, compared with the words of the 13 Geo. 3, that it is expressly authorized by that Act.

By 13 Geo. 3, it is enacted, "That the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal shall be at all times a court of record, and shall be a court of oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery, in and for the town of Calcutta, and factory of Fort William in Bengal, and the limits thereof, and the factories subordinate thereto." The clause in the charter is, "and we do hereby grant, ordain and appoint, that the said Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal shall

also be a court of oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery, in and for the town of Calcutta, and factory of Fort William in Bengal aforesaid, and the limits thereof, and the factories subordinate thereunto, and shall have the like power and authority as commissioners or justices of oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery, have or may exercise in that part of Great Britain called England, to inquire by the oaths of good and sufficient men, of all treasons, murders, and other felonies, forgeries, perjuries, trespasses, and other crimes and misdemeanors, heretofore had, done, or committed, or which shall hereafter be had, done, or committed within the said town or factory, and the limits aforesaid, and the factories subordinate thereto."

I said, that whether the personal juris. diction over the inhabitants at large was legal or not, was in this case merely speculative: I might add, that as far as the practice of the court had gone when I left India, it was speculative as to every case. After the alarms taken at, and propagated from, the India House, and the general apprehension in England from the injustice and confusion consequent to the supposed introduction of the criminal laws of Eng. land over the nations of India, I fear I shall scarcely gain credit when I assert, that those laws have not been put in practice against any of the inhabitants of the provinces; yet I do most positively aver, that from the establishment of the court, till I left Bengal in December 1783, there had been no indictment tried against any person who was not an inhabitant of Cal cutta, nor for crimes not committed in Calcutta.

I shall first endeavour to clear away the third objection, which impeaches the legality of trying Nundcomar as an inhabitant of Calcutta; for it is true, as stated in the Article, that he was held to be subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as an inhabitant of the town of Calcutta, I admit there was no other "pretence of jurisdiction," and on this fact, rightly understood, I rest the whole gist of what I shall offer in support of the legality of the proceedings, and the propriety and justice of the charter and act of parlia ment which introduced the English laws into that town. I therefore earnestly request the particular attention of the House to this most material point, and that it will distinguish this case from what it is not, by keeping in mind what it is: that it is not the case of a native inhabitant

of the provinces at large, tried by an unknown new English law, imposed on foreign nations and provinces, but the case of a person tried by the ancient municipal laws of Calcutta, an English town, with which law he was well acquainted, and of which town he was a settled inhabitant.

There are but two classes of people, except British subjects, over whom the criminal jurisdiction of the court extends. These are inhabitants of the provinces at large as described in the act, and the inhabitants of the town of Calcutta, who indeed are British subjects. It will therefore be necessary for the understanding of this Article, and the propriety of the use of the English law, to consider the political state of the inhabitants of Calcutta, as distinguished from the political state of the inhabitants of the province at large before 13 Geo. 3, and the operation of the charter on each state.

The inhabitants of the provinces at large constitute a nation of immense population, extending over a vast region, governed by their ancient laws, having courts of justice administering those laws, enjoying no benefits from, not desiring and totally ignorant of, the laws of England; the Parliament of Great Britain had enacted no laws to which it required their obedience; the King had not exercised his prerogative over them by establishing his courts of justice, or introducing his laws; their subjection to his laws must have been compulsory; if they disliked his laws, they could not have escaped from them but by quitting the provinces entirely.

The state of the inhabitants of Calcutta, was in every particular different they were, as compared to the inhabitants of the provinces, a very inconsiderable number, inhabiting a very narrow district, and that district an English town and settlement, not governed by their own laws, but by those of England, long since there established; where there were no courts of criminal justice but those of the King of England, which administered his laws to the extent, and in the form and manner in which they are administered in England: the inhabitants had resorted to the English flag, and enjoyed the protection of the English law; they chose those laws in preference to their own; they were become accustomed to them; the town was part of the dominion of the crown by unequivocal right; originally by cession founded on compact, afterwards by cap

ture and conquest. Their submission was voluntary; and if they disliked the laws, they had only to cross a ditch, and were no longer subject to them. The state of an inhabitant in the provinces at large, was that of a man inhabiting his own country, subject to its own laws; the state of an Hindoo, a native of the provinces, inhabiting Calcutta, which in effect was an English town to all intents and purposes, did not differ from that of any other foreigner, from whatsoever country he might have migrated; he partook of the protection of the laws, and in return owed them obedience.

The distance or proximity of the country where a foreign inhabitant is born, cannot make him more or less subject to the laws of the English town which he inhabits: an Hindoo inhabitant of Calcutta was as much amenable to the English law in Calcutta, as if the same Hindoo had been an inhabitant of London. He might with equal propriety object to being tried by any law but that of his native country at the Old Bailey as at the Court-house in Calcutta. Gibraltar in the kingdom of Spain is, Calais in that of France was, part of the dominion of this realm: admitting the laws of England to have been introduced into those towns, as I will prove them to have been introduced into Calcutta, a French inhabitant of Calais, or a Spanish inhabitant of Gibraltar, having offended against the law under which he dwelt, might with equal reason complain that he was not tried by the law of the place of his nativity, as an Hindoo in Calcutta, because that town is situated in Bengal.

There is nothing in the quality of an Hindoo that makes the law of the country wherein he was born more attached to him than to a Frenchman or Spaniard: all must be obedient to the law that protects them.

It was not till, since the seat of government and the collection of the revenues have been brought to Calcutta, that it has become populous by the influx of black inhabitants; the laws have not been obtruded on them, they have come to the laws of England.

The charter has given a criminal jurisdiction not local and territorial over the provinces, but personal over part of the inhabitants answering to certain descriptions; but the jurisdiction given over the inhabitants of Calcutta is universal, that being a territorial jurisdiction through the