“It appears incontestably upon the records that the charges preferred by the Ranny against me proceeded from the office of Mr. Fowke.  All the papers transmitted by her came in their original form written in the English language,—­some with Persian papers, of which they were supposed to be translations, but all strongly marked with the character and idiom of the English language.  I applied on Saturday last for Persian originals of some of the papers sent by her, and I was refused:  I am justified in declaring my firm belief that no such originals exist.

“With respect to Nundcomar’s accusations, they were delivered by the hands of Mr. Francis, who has declared that he was called upon by Rajah Nundcomar, as a duty belonging to his office as a councillor of this state, to lay the packet which contained them before the board,—­that he conceived that he could not, consistent with his duty, refuse such a letter at the instance of a person of the Rajah’s rank, and did accordingly receive it, and laid it before the board,—­declaring at the same time that he was unacquainted with the contents of it.  I believe that the Court of Directors, and those to whom those proceedings shall be made known, will think differently of this action of Mr. Francis:  that Nundcomar was guilty of great insolence and disrespect in the demand which he made of Mr. Francis; and that it was not a duty belonging to the office of a councillor of this state to make himself the carrier of a letter, which would have been much more properly committed to the hands of a peon or hircarra, or delivered by the writer of it to the secretary himself.

“Mr. Francis has acknowledged that he apprehended in general that it contained some charge against me.  If the charge was false, it was a libel.  It might have been false for anything that Mr. Francis could know to the contrary, since he was unacquainted with the contents of it.  In this instance, therefore, he incurred the hazard of presenting a libel to the board:  this was not a duty belonging to his office as a councillor of this state.  I must further inform the board that I have been long since acquainted with Nundcomar’s intentions of making this attack upon me.  Happily, Nundcomar, among whose talents for intrigue that of secrecy is not the first, has been ever too ready to make the first publication of his own intentions.  I was shown a paper containing many accusations against me, which I was told was carried by Nundcomar to Colonel Monson, and that he himself was employed for some hours in private with Colonel Monson, explaining the nature of those charges.