On the following night the Envoy and I visited the Ameen-ed-Doulah Hajee Mohamed Hossein Khan. At his house, Mirza Sheffeea, Hajee Mohamed Hussein Khan Mervee, Fath Ali Khan the poet, and other great men were assembled. The commemoration of the death of Hossein was performing in his court-yard; and when the Mollah begun to read that part of the ceremonial appointed for the day, the windows of the room, in which we were seated, were thrown open, and we all changed our positions, and sat with our faces towards the Mollah. His preaching lasted about an hour, and was followed by the representation of that part of the history of Hossein’s death, which succeeded the scene performed on the preceding evening. First came Hossein’s horse, with his turban on the saddle. Then, in a row on chairs, were seated Yezid, with three others; one of whom, dressed in the European habit, represented an European Embassador, (Elchee Firing.) Zain Labedeen, Hossein’s brother, chained, and with a triangular wooden collar round his neck, appeared as a captive before Yezid, and was followed by his sister and children. Yezid’s executioner treated them with much barbarity, repelling the women when they implored his protection; and using the captives with great insult, at the instigation of Yezid. When Zain Labedeen, by Yezid’s firman, was brought to be beheaded, the Elchee Firing implored his pardon, which instead of appeasing the tyrant, only produced an order for putting the Elchee himself to death. All this scene produced great lamentation among the spectators, who seemed to vie with each other in the excess of their weeping, and in the display of all the signs of grief. The Prime Minister cried incessantly; the Ameen-ed-Dowlah covered his face with both his hands, and groaned aloud; Mahomed Hussein Khan Mervee made at intervals very vociferous complaints. In some I could perceive real tears stealing down their cheeks, but in most I suspect that the grief was as much a piece of acting as the tragedy which excited it. The King himself always cries at the ceremony; his servants therefore are obliged to imitate him. When the mob passed the window, at which we were seated, they again beat their breasts most furiously.

25th. This day was the last of the Moharrem, when all those, who had performed the ceremonies peculiar to this season, appeared before the King. He was seated in a more elevated chamber, which looked towards the Maidan. A tent had been pitched for the Envoy, who was invited to attend, but he was too unwell to venture out. The representation of the day happened, indeed, to be incomplete. A strange circumstance had occurred at a village near Teheran, which so much frightened the man appointed to personify Hossein before his Majesty, that in fear of the same fate he absconded. His alarm was natural, for at this village the man who performed the part of the executioner chose to act to the letter, what was only intended as a very bloodless representation; and when Hossein was brought before him to be beheaded, he cut off the poor actor’s head. For this the King fined him one hundred tomauns. His Majesty was pleased to take much notice of the Indians, whose ceremonial seemed to affect him much more than the others. Some keep the Moharrem three days later.

CHAP. XII.
TEHERAN.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NEGOCIATIONS—TREATIES SIGNED—EXCHANGED—PERSIAN LETTER TO THE ENVOY—PUNISHMENT OF THEFT—EVE OF THE NOROOZ—PRESENTS DISTRIBUTED BY THE KING—NOROOZ OF ANCIENT PERSIA—ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY THE KING—ANNUAL PRESENTS—AMUSEMENTS OF THE DAY—RACES—BREED OF HORSES—THE ZOOMBAREEK ARTILLERY—INTERVIEW WITH THE MINISTERS; WITH THE KING—KALAAT FROM THE KING—FRENCH TREATY—PUBLICITY OF PERSIAN DIPLOMACY—GATE OF THE PALACE—DISMISSAL OF THE FRENCH—LETTER TO THE KING OF ENGLAND—DISPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA—CONDUCT OF THE PERSIAN MINISTERS; OF THE KING—APPOINTMENT AND HISTORY OF MIRZA ABUL HASSAN, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY TO ENGLAND.

The details of the subsequent progress of the negociation were daily minuted in my journal; but they involve so many personal considerations that they could not be fairly published, even if I had not acquired the information by confidential and official opportunities. I sacrifice, therefore, but with deep regret the power of doing that justice to the merits of the British Envoy which the simple narrative, without one comment, would have afforded. I must content myself with adding, that Sir Harford Jones succeeded in his great object; and concluded a treaty with Persia (where the French influence had already baffled and driven away one English agent) by which the French, in their turns, were expelled, and our influence was restored; at a time when, instead of co-operation, he experienced only counteraction from the British Government of India, and encountered all the rivalry of the active and able emissaries of France.

On another motive I regret the omission of these notes. They would have characterized, I believe with fidelity, the habits and modes of thinking of a Persian statesman, and added an amusing document to the annals of diplomacy. The conferences of the Plenipotentiaries were carried on at times with the warmest contentions, at other times interrupted by the loudest laughter on the most indifferent subject. One night the parties had sat so long, and had talked so much without producing conviction on either side, that the Plenipotentiaries by a sort of un-official compact, fell asleep. The Prime Minister and the Ameen-ed-Dowlah snored aloud in one place, and the Envoy and I stretched ourselves along in another. Though on the very first night of the discussions, the parties had separated with a full conviction that every thing was settled; and though the Prime Minister himself, laying his hand on the Envoy’s shoulder, had said to him, “You have already completed what the King of England himself in person could not have done;” yet the very next conference, they came forwards with pretensions alike new and extravagant. At the close of that meeting however, the Chief Secretary was appointed to bring the Treaty written fair to the Envoy on the following morning. Instead of this, the Prime Minister sent a large citron, and inquired after the Envoy’s health. On another occasion, the Persian Plenipotentiaries swore that every thing should be as the Envoy wished, and instantly wrote out a corresponding form of Treaty, to which (rather than start a difficulty about indifferent words) he assented. They were then so anxious that he should immediately attend them to the King’s Summer Palace to sign, that they would not give him time to translate it into English: he however refused to sign a Persian treaty, till the English copy was ready. They so little expected this refusal, that they had already, by the King’s desire, sent thirty mule-loads of fruits, sherbets, and sweetmeats to celebrate the event at the new palace; and were of course displeased and disappointed. At another time, in the middle of a very serious conversation, the Prime Minister stopped short, and asked the Envoy very coolly to tell him the history of the world from the creation. This was intended as a joke upon one of the Secretaries, who was then writing the annals of the reign of the present King. On another occasion, in which the same Minister was deeply and personally interested, and in which he invoked every thing sacred to attest his veracity, and convince the Envoy, (now, “by the head of the King;” then, “by Mecca;” then, “by the salt of Fath Ali Shah”) he turned to me in a pause of his discourse, and asked if I were married, and begun some absurd story.

These circumstances, however characteristic of the people, may appear trifling in themselves, or at least indicative of minds, over which an European Negociator might easily attain an ascendancy. It is necessary therefore to premise, that the real difficulties of our situation were never diminished by any deficiency of address and diplomatic finesse in the Persian Plenipotentiaries. Every fresh dispatch which the French received from Europe, while it contributed to raise the spirits and activity of our rivals themselves, enabled the Persians also to assume a higher tone of decision between our contending interests, while the only communications from his own countrymen which Sir Harford Jones received in Persia, were those which would have baffled the hopes and discouraged the enterprize of almost any other man. In the alternation of the dispositions of the court of Persia, he retained the same firm and unbending policy, and when the influence of the French appeared to be regaining all its preponderance, he made no one concession which he had not offered in more favourable circumstances, and finally succeeded in concluding a treaty almost on his own original terms, while the French were signing every demand which the Persians made.

As a more detailed specimen however of the conduct of the negociation, I can reserve a portion of the concluding scene.

At length a night was fixed in which the Treaties were to be signed. The Envoy and I repaired to the house of the Ameen-ed-Doulah, where we found him and his Nazir or Superintendant, the Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary, and the Persian Agent for English affairs at Shiraz. The conversation after a short time fixed on learned subjects. The Persians are extremely fond of history and geography, though in general they are profoundly ignorant of both. The Prime Minister went through in a breath the whole history of Russia. We then entered on matters of chronology, which introduced a discussion on the relative antiquity of particular remains, as Persepolis and Nakshi Rustam. The Chief Secretary, who seemed to have read much Persian history, knew that part which related to Shapour, and mentioned that he had carried his arms into Syria, and had taken prisoner a Roman Emperor. Yet the subject of the sculptures at Nakshi Rustam had still escaped their observation; and they had still, according to the popular belief, substituted Rustam for Shapour, as the hero of those representations. To this conversation, supper succeeded; as usual it was short.