Your Committee examining Mr. Scott and Mr. Baber on this subject, they also produced a Persian paper, which Mr. Baber said he had received from the hands of a servant of Munny Begum,—­and along with it a paper purporting to be a translation into English of the Persian original.  In the paper given as the translation, Munny Begum is made to allege many matters of hardship and cruelty against Mr. Goring, and an attempt to compel her to make out a false account, but does not at all deny the giving the money:  very far from it.  She is made to assert, indeed, “that Mr. Goring desired her to put down three lacs of rupees, as divided between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton.  I begged to be excused, observing to him that this money had neither been tendered or accepted with any criminal or improper view.”  After some lively expressions in the European manner, she says, “that it had been customary to furnish a table for the Governor and his attendants, during their stay at court.  With respect to the sum mentioned to Mr. Middleton, it was a free gift from my own privy purse.  Purburam replied, he understood this money to be paid to these gentlemen as a gratuity for secret services; and as such he should assuredly represent it.”  Here the payments to Mr. Hastings are fully admitted, and excused as agreeable to usage, and for keeping a table.  The present to Mr. Middleton is justified as a free gift.  The paper produced by Mr. Scott is not referred to by your Committee as of any weight, but to show that it does not prove what it is produced to prove.

Your Committee, on reading the paper delivered in by Mr. Scott as a translation, perceive it to be written in a style which they conceived was little to be expected in a faithful translation from a Persian original, being full of quaint terms and idiomatic phrases, which strongly bespeak English habits in the way of thinking, and of English peculiarities and affectations in the expression.  Struck with these strong internal marks of a suspicious piece, they turned to the Persian manuscript produced by Mr. Scott and Mr. Baber, and comparing it with Mr. Goring’s papers, they found the latter carefully sealed upon every leaf, as they believe is the practice universal in all authentic pieces.  They found on the former no seal or signature whatsoever, either at the top or bottom of the scroll.  This circumstance of a want of signature not only takes away all authority from the piece as evidence, but strongly confirmed the suspicions entertained by your Committee, on reading the translation, of unwarrantable practices in the whole conduct of this business, even if the translation should be found substantially to agree with the original, such an original as it is.  The Persian roll is in the custody of the clerk of your Committee for further examination.

Mr. Baber and Mr. Scott, being examined on these material defects in the authentication of a paper produced by them as authentic, could give no sort of account how it happened to be without a signature; nor did Mr. Baber explain how he came to accept and use it in that condition.