"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٩‎٩‎٩] (١٢٦٢/٥١٦)

1999
through the ecclesiastical authorities, those exhibitions of Shi'ah fanati
cism which in Iran are associated with the month of Muharram. In the
matter of foreign relations he was equally * uncompromising, it being
• jjjg ambition to reclaim Persia from her attitude of humiliating depen
dence on the good pleasure of Russia, Britain, and Turkey. He refused,
, a g we have already seen, proffers of foreign intervention between the
Shah and the Mashad rebels; and he turned an equally deaf ear to
British suggestions that the Asaf-ud-Dauleh's family should be restored
fco power in Khurasan and to Russian demands that Bahman Mirza, an
ancle of the Shah who had fled from his post and taken refuge in Russian
territory, should be replaced in the Governor-Generalship of Azarbaijan,
His strict observance of his engagements was as remarkable as his un
willingness to enter into any ; and his simplicity and inaccessibility to
flattery were no less striking. By honesty, industry, energy, and courage,
the Amir Nizam succeeded in imparting relative prosperity to the fiscal
resources of the State and to private trade, as well as a certain degree of
efficiency to the army ; but hardly had affairs begun to mend when he
suddenly incurred the distrust of the Shah.
The Amir Nizam had the defects of his qualities; he bore himself
with a hauteur and self-sufficiency that cannot but have been disagreeable
to his royal master; and it was even whispered that he had spoken
slightingly of the Shah as " that young fellow/' It may have been falsely
represented to Nasir-ud-Din Shah that the Minister cherished designs
upon the throne itself; and, if so, the devotion with which the army now
regarded him may have seemed to lend probability to the charge. On the
night of the 13th November 1851, the Shah, after taking extraordinary
precautions for his own safety, sent to inform the Amir Nizam that he
was relieved of all but his military functions,—an order to which the
Minister respectfully bowed.
Ite: were ma(ie 011 Mirza Taqi Khan's behalf by the British
audi a nd resulted in his being offered the Government of Kashan;
diil ^ ^ es itated to accept any provincial government, believing that his
Me would be in danger immediately that he was cut off from direct com.
munication with the Shah. The Russian Minister then interposed on his
Ift: behalf, but so tactlessly as to become in the end the cause of his destruc
tion. An attempt by Prince Dolgoruki to place him openly under Russian
protection at Tehran having provoked alarm and indignation on the part
^J^h ah and his new advise rs, the Amir Nizam was sent as a political
Amh-, t0 journal of Two Years' Travels, vol. II, page 237) the
discard F m S 0We< ^ ^ linreasona hly strong anti-foreign bias, persuading the Shah to
factured TTT* £l0m ^ SerViCe, and eVen P 1 ' 0 ? 08 ^ to exclude a11 foreign manu-
goods from the country by way of encouraging native industries.