Sir William Jones - K S Ramaswami Sastri

Part II

Sir William Jones on the Legal Mode of Suppressing Riots

This pamphlet is of great value and excellence and presents, in a succinct form, the basis of personal security and public peace. He says well:

The power of the country, therefore, includes the whole civil state from the duke to the peasant; while the military state as such, forms no part of that power, being under a different command, and subject to a different law.

He concludes his essay with the following true and wise words:

As every soldier in England is at the same time a citizen, I wish to see every citizen able, at least for the preservation of the public peace, to act as a soldier; when that shall be the case the liberty of Britain will ever be unassailed; for this plain reason—it will be unassailable. The security, and consequently the happiness of a free people do not consist in their belief, however firm, that the executive power will not attempt to invade their just rights, but in their consciousness that any such attempt would be wholly ineffectual.

I may quote here, from his speech on the Reformation of Parliament, the following fine passage:

Be persuaded also that the people of England can only expect to be the happiest and most glorious while they are the freest, and can only become the freest, when they shall be the most virtuous and most enlightened of nations.

(To be continued in November, 2006 issue)

© "Eminent Orientalists –– Indian, European, American" published by Asian Educational Services, Second Floor, 2/15 Ansari Road, New Delhi 110 002. Website: www.asianeds.com. Part I of this article appeared in Splendour, September 2006 issue. Reprinted with permission.c

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