You have seen
what that government was, and by-and-by you shall see the effects of it.
Your Lordships have now seen this trunk of Mr. Scott's producing the
effects of Aladdin's lamp,--of which your Lordships may read in books
much more worthy of credit than Mr. Hastings's correspondence. I have
given all the credit of this precious discovery to Mr. Scott's trunk;
but, my Lords, I find that I have to ask pardon for a mistake in
supposing the letter of Hyder Beg Khan to be a part of Mr. Hastings's
correspondence. It comes from another quarter, not much less singular,
and equally authentic and unimpeachable. But though it is not from the
trunk, it smells of the trunk, it smells of the leather. I was as proud
of my imaginary discovery as Sancho Panza was that one of his ancestors
had discovered a taste of iron in some wine, and another a taste of
leather in the same wine, and that afterwards there was found in the
cask a little key tied to a thong of leather, which had given to the
wine a taste of both. Now, whether this letter tasted of the leather of
the trunk or of the iron of Mr. Macpherson, I confess I was a little
out in my suggestion and my taste. The letter in question was written by
Hyder Beg Khan, after Mr.
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