‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎253r] (512/722)

disposal; but this class has of late become more numerous from frequent
wars and rebellions with which the kingdom has been afflicted. Amid scenes
of revolution, neither life nor property is safe, as the peaceable inhabitants
of the country are dragged into a participation of the crimes of the different
individuals who are aspiring to the crown, and that very weakness which
compelled them to acknowledge one party, too often invites the other to
plunder them; but it is never considered that a monarch can be justified,
unless under the circumstances which have been mentioned, in seizing the
property or taking the life'of any of his subjects not in his immediate
employ.
The king of Persia always exercises his power as the chief magistrate
of the ‘ urf/ or customary law, in his own capital and the district surrounding
it ; and all civil and criminal cases, after being examined by subordinate
officers of justice, are submitted to him for decision. His numerous occu
pations compel him in the performance of this part of his duty to trust in
a great degree to others, or to form a very hasty judgment on the cases
brought before him ; and this summary proceeding, added to the mode of
execution, which is generally in his presence, and is always inflicted by
executioners who attend his person, often give a character of barbarous
tyranny to acts of the most exemplary justice. We generally find that, in
a country like Persia, the inhabitants of a capital, who are under the
immediate jurisdiction of the monarch, are the happiest and the best
governed. Their temper is of more consequence to the despot than that
of any other part of his subjects, and they are, therefore, treated with more
lenity and consideration. They are seldom exposed to be tyrannised over
by any other than the sovereign ; and, assuredly, of all the evils which
belong to absolute power, the greatest is the necessary delegation of its
vast authority to mean and sordid agents, whose minds must, from their
condition, be insensible to many of the higher motives that may be expected
to influence the conduct of the chief ruler.
Many European travellers, who have resided at the capital of Persia,
have felt a very natural horror at the tyranny of particular sovereigns, and
have given in consequence an exaggerated picture of the condition of that
country. One writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. affirms, that “ the Persians expect injustice from their
kings”: but the idiomatic phrases, which he adduces to support this assertion,
only prove that they recognise an unlimited power in their sovereign, which
they will admit in no other person. The same author, whose experience
was very great, and whose local knowledge was very minute, after a detail
of the caprice and cruelty of the kings of Persia, upon which the philosophers
of his country have grounded many just and some erroneous opinions, con
cludes with the following remarkable observation : “ After all, I never
saw and never heard of the king committing any outrageous act of violence
unauthorised by a public procedure against any person not in the class of
courtiers or public officers of government. With respect to the latter,” he
very truly states, “ that the danger they incur does not diminish their soli
citude for employment. They listen attentively, he adds, to the accounts
they hear of those countries where life and property are secure $ but the
impression made upon their minds is of the same character as that which
most men receive when told of the joys of the other world. It is unaccom
panied by any desire to leave that which they inhabit.” This writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. also
observes, and with truth, that in a government like Persia it would be
impossible to adopt any other than the most prompt and vigorous measures