‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎291r] (588/722)

on the plains of Panipat only forty years previously. Accrding-ly the Bom
bay government sent an envoy, named Mahdi Ah Khan, to induce the
Persian government to create such a diversion in western Afghanistan as
would draw off the attention of Zaman Shah from the threatened invasion.
At that time two refractory brothers of Zaman Shah, namely, prince Mah
mud and prince Firuz-ud-din, were refugees in Persian territory, seeking the
aid of the Shah against the Afghan Amir; whilst other circumstances led the
Shah of Persia to meditate hostilities against Afghanistan. In 1796 Zaman
Shah had been sufficiently alarmed at the progress of Agha Muhammad Khan
to agree to the cession of Balkh ; but after the death of that sovereign in
1797, he had sent a mission to the Persian court to demand the restora
tion of Khurasan to the suzerainty of Afghanistan. Fateh Ali Shah
replied in the usual tone of Persian arrogance, that so far from restoring
Khurasan to Kabul, he intended to extend the Persian empire to its ancient
limits—in other words, to conquer all Afghanistan to the neighbourhood of
the Indus. Accordingly the envoy from Bombay reached Persia at a time
when the Persian government was prepared to assume a hostile attitude
towards Afghanistan, and thereupon sent an inflated account of his success
to the Bombay government. Subsequently, however, Fateh Ali Khan
received an ambassador from Zaman Shah loaded with presents; and he was
so far propitiated that he agreed to return to his capital, Tib ran, provided
Zaman Shah would receive back his two refractory brothers.
Meantime the British government at Calcutta was wholly unaware of
the success which had been attained by the despatch of Mahdi Khan from
Bombay. Moreover, Lord Wellesley, who was at this time governor
general of India, was to some extent alive to the ultimate designs of
Napoleon in the East. Accordingly he despatched Captain (afterwards Sir
John) Malcolm on a mission to Tihran. Malcolm distributed presents in a
somewhat lavish fashion, and succeeded in concluding both a commercial
and a political treaty with the Shah. Under the commercial treaty the
Persian ports were to be opened to English and Indian traders under the
protection of the Shah's government. Under the political treaty the Shah
engaged to make no peace with the Afghans, unless the Amir agreed to
abandon all attempts against Hindustan, and to exclude all Frenchmen from
his dominions under any circumstances whatever. Subsequently Fateh Ali
Shah sent a return mission. The first envoy from Persia was killed at
Bombay in a scuffle between his own servants and the guards appointed to
attend him.
However, a second envoy, named Muhammad Nabi Khan, was appointed
to succeed the deceased envoy.
After the departure of Captain Malcolm from Persia, a memorable
personage in the modern annals of Persia met with a sudden downfall.
This was Haji Ibrahim, the Persian king-maker, this able statesman had
filled the post of prime minister during a considerable part of three reigns.
It was bv his means that Lutf All Khan and Agha Muhammad Khan
obtained, in turn, possession of the throne of Persia; but it was the fate
of this king-maker not only to depose one dynasty and set up another, but
to incur the deadly suspicion of both parties. In the first instance, he had
excited a jealousy m the mind of Lutf Ah Khan so deadly, that to save him
self he abandoned the cause of the Zand and transferred the crown to the
Kajar; and it is easy to conceive that he may have^ stirred up a similar
hostile feeling in the mind of a young sovereignlike Fateh Ali Shah. The