such a time was of dubious honesty, as it doubtless was of dubious expediency. A more forward policy might have been more successful. Had Russia been as well disposed to neutrality as Great Britain, it would have been to the advantage of the latter to maintain the most friendly relations with the Muscovite State; but the unscrupulousness of Russia placed England at a disadvantage. The game was one in which the more honourable player was sure to be foully beaten. Russia made new acquisitions of Eastern territory, and England remained a passive spectator of the spoliation.
It is doubtful whether our statesmen were ever satisfied that, in refusing the subsidy and hesitating to mediate, they acted up to the spirit of the treaty of Teheran.[99] Certain it is, that the claim of the Persian Government, at this time, awakened our British diplomatists to a re-consideration of those subsidy articles which had involved, and might again involve us in difficulties, not only of an embarrassing, but of a somewhat discreditable, character. It was desirable to get rid of these perplexing stipulations. The time was opportune; the occasion was at hand. The large indemnity insisted upon by Russia drove the Persian financiers to extremities, and reduced them to all kinds of petty shifts to meet the extortionate demand. In this conjucture, England, like an expert money-lender, was ready to take advantage of the embarrassments of the Persian State, and to make its own terms with the impoverished creditor of the unyielding Muscovite. The bargain was struck. Sir John Macdonald, on the part of the British Government, passed a bond to the Shah for 250,000 tomauns as the price of the amendment of the subsidy articles, and subsequently obtained the required erasures by the payment of four-fifths of the amount.
A season of outward tranquillity succeeded the completion of the treaty of Toorkomanchai. But the great northern power did not slumber. Though, during those years it added little outwardly to its dominions, it was obtaining more and more that great moral ascendancy which, perhaps, was better calculated to secure its ends than an ostentatious extension of territory. The game of quiet intimidation was now to be tried. The experiment succeeded to the utmost. Obtaining such an ascendancy over its counsels as enabled it to induce Persia to transgress its legitimate boundaries, and adopt an aggressive policy towards the countries on its eastern frontier, the European power overawed its Asiatic neighbour. It was the object of Russia to use the resources of the Persian State in furtherance of its own ends, without overtly taking possession of them, and thus bringing itself into collision with other powers. To secure this ascendancy it was necessary to assume a commanding—indeed, an offensive—attitude of superiority, and, whilst abstaining from acts of aggression, sufficiently momentous to awaken the jealousy of other European States, to keep alive the apprehensions of its Eastern neighbour by an irritating, dictatorial demeanour, often implying threats of renewed hostility. Conscious of weakness, Persia yielded to the influence thus sought to be established; and in due course became, as was intended, a facile tool in the hands of the Russian minister.
Such, briefly stated in a few sentences, is the history of the relations subsisting between Russia and Persia since the treaty of Toorkomanchai. It need not be added that, during this time, English influence declined sensibly at the Persian Court. Little pains, indeed, were taken to preserve it, until it became apparent that the encroachments of Persia upon the countries between its frontier and India, instigated as they were by the Russian Government, were calculated to threaten the security of our Indian Empire. In 1831, Abbas Meerza, the Prince Royal, against the advice of the Shah, determined on sending an army into Khorassan; and then projected an expedition against Khiva, for the chastisement of that marauding state, which had so often invaded the Persian frontier, and carried off into slavery so many Persian subjects. The Russian agent encouraged, if he did not actually instigate, these movements. It was said, indeed, that the active co-operation of Russia would soon be apparent in both enterprises—that it was her policy to seek the assistance of Persia in a movement upon Khiva, and to aid that state in the subjugation of Khorassan. Not only in Khorassan itself, in Afghanistan and Toorkistan, but in the bazaars of Bombay,[100] was the advance of the confederate armies of the two states into Khorassan, and thence upon Herat and India, generally discussed and believed. Such, indeed, at this time, was the ascendancy of Muscovite influence over the mind of Abbas Meerza, that it was reported he had married a Russian Princess, and adopted the Christian faith.
There was a British officer in the Persian camp, Captain Shee, whose interference brought about the postponement of the Khivan expedition, and in the following year it was determined to abandon the Oosbeg enterprise for the time, and to punish the offending Afghans. An expedition against Herat was then planned; but British interference, this time directed by the sagacity of Mr. M’Neill, was again successfully put forth, and the movement was suspended. In the mean while the Khorassan campaign was prosecuted with vigour. The arms of Abbas Meerza were triumphant. The independence which the province had endeavoured to assert could not be maintained in the face of the battalions of the Prince Royal, aided, as they were, by European courage and skill.[101] Ameerabad and Koochan fell before him. The recusant chiefs made their submission; and before the close of 1832 all the objects of the campaign had been accomplished, and the subjugation of Khorassan was complete.
Emboldened by success, Abbas Meerza now contemplated new enterprises. The project of an expedition against Khiva, to be subsequently extended to Bokhara, was then revived; and the reduction of Herat, a design favoured alike by the ambition of the Prince and the insidious policy of Russia, was again brought under review. Herat, which lies on the western frontier of Afghanistan, had, on the partition of the Douranee Empire among the Barukzye Sirdars, afforded an asylum to Shah Mahmoud, and had ever since remained in the hands of that Prince and Kamran, his successor. To subjugate this tract of country was to open the gate to further Eastern conquest. The Russian agent was eager, therefore, to promote a movement which squared so well with the designs of his own Government. The expedition against Herat was no longer to be postponed. In 1833 it was actually put into execution; and the command of the invading force was entrusted to Mahomed Meerza, the son of the Prince Royal.
In the autumn of 1833 Abbas Meerza died at Meshed. Arrested in the prosecution of the siege of Herat by the tidings of his father’s death, Mahomed Meerza returned, in no enviable frame of mind, and withdrew within the Persian frontier. There were some doubts, too, at that time, regarding the succession; but these were soon set at rest. The Shah nominated Mahomed Meerza as his heir, and both the British and the Russian Governments gave their cordial assent to the choice.
A few months afterwards, in the autumn of 1834, Futteh Ali Shah died at Ispahan; and Mahomed Meerza ascended the throne. The change was not favourable to British interests. Futteh Ali had ever been our friend. From him the Russians had received little encouragement—but his son and his grandson had thrown themselves into the arms of the Muscovite; and now that the latter had ascended the throne, there was every prospect of Russian influence becoming paramount at the Persian Court. Great Britain had done for the young King all that he required. He believed that those good offices, which mainly had secured for him the succession to the throne, were employed only for the purpose of counteracting the dreaded ascendancy of Russia; and he was in no humour to display his gratitude towards a nation, the character and the resources of which he so little understood.
The thought of breaking down the monarchy of Herat still held possession of the mind of Mahomed Shah. Ever since, in the autumn of 1833, he had been arrested in his first expedition against that place by the death of his father, he had brooded over his disappointment, and meditated a renewal of the hostile undertaking. It is said, indeed, that he swore a solemn oath, sooner or later to retrace his steps to the eastward, and to wipe out his disgrace in Afghan blood. Seated on the throne of his grandfather, and upheld there by British influence, he dreamt of Eastern conquest, openly talked of it in durbar, and delighted to dwell upon his prospective triumphs over Oosbeg and Afghan hosts. He needed little prompting to push his armies across the Eastern frontier. But there were promptings from without as well as from within. Russia was at the elbow of the Shah, ever ready to drop tempting suggestions into the young monarch’s ear, and to keep alive within him the fire both of his ambition and his revenge. It was the policy of Russia at this time to compensate for its own encroachments on the Western frontier of Persia, by helping that country to new acquisitions of territory on the East. Mahomed Shah had little real love for his great Northern neighbour; but he profoundly reverenced the gigantic power of the Czar, and, mistaking quiescence for weakness, aggressiveness for strength, contrasted