meets with a cruel punishment. I do not justify the punishment; but the severity of it shows
how little of their power the princes of that country mean to delegate to their servants, the
whole of which the gentleman at your bar says was delegated to him.
There is another case, a very strong one, and that is the case of presents, which I understand
is a custom admitted throughout Asia in all their governments. It was of a person who was
raised to a high office; no business was suffered to come before him without a previous
present. "One morning, the king being at this time on a hunting party, the nazar came to the
tent of the king, but was denied entrance by the meter, or master of the wardrobe. About the
same time the king came forth, and, seeing the nazar, commanded his officers to take off
the bonnet from the head of that dog that took gifts from his people, and that he should sit
three days bareheaded in the heat of the sun, and as many nights in the air. Afterwards he
caused him to be chained about the neck and arms, and condemned him to perpetual
imprisonment, with a mamoudy a day for his maintenance; but he died for grief within eight
days after he was put in prison."
Do I mean, by reading this to your Lordships, to express or intimate an approbation either
of the cruelty of the punishment or of the coarse barbarism of the language? Neither one nor
the other. I produce it to your Lordships to prove to you, from this dreadful example, the
horror which that government felt, when any person subject to it assumed to himself a
privilege to receive presents. The cruelty and severity exercised by these princes is not
levelled at the poor unfortunate people who complain at their gates, but, to use their own
barbarous expression, to dogs that impose taxes and take presents. God forbid I should use
that language! The people, when they complain, are not called dogs and sent away, but the
governors, who do these things against the people: they are called dogs, and treated in that