And if any man will produce the Koran to me, and will but show me one text in it that authorizes in any degree an arbitrary power in the government, I will confess that I have read that book, and been conversant in the affairs of Asia, in vain.

There is not such a syllable in it; but, on the contrary, against oppressors by name every letter of that law is fulminated.

There are interpreters established throughout all Asia to explain that law, an order of priesthood, whom they call _men of the law_.

These men are conservators of the law; and to enable them to preserve it in its perfection, they are secured from the resentment of the sovereign: for he cannot touch them.

Even their kings are not always vested with a real supreme power, but the government is in some degree republican.
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.