It was the fortune of Persia to be delivered from the Afghan yoke at a time when, under a feeble and corrupt ruler, the national life had been almost crushed out by foreign tyranny. This deliverance was wrought by a man who raised himself from the lowest condition to the head of the kingdom which he restored. Besides this achievement for Persia, Nadir Shah performed deeds of conquest which placed his name among those who have won lasting celebrity by the subjugation of empires.The Afghans had in 1722 captured Ispahan, the Persian capital, then an important metropolis with six hundred thousand inhabitants. They sacked the city and killed all of the royal family except Hasan, the weak ruler, his son Tamasp, and two grandchildren. From this blow the once magnificent capital of Persia has never recovered. Tamasp became shah in 1727.How the brief rule of the conquering Afghans was terminated by Nadir Shah, and how he pursued his own bloody path of conquest, Sir John Malcolm, the historian of Persia, relates in a most graphic and comprehensive manner.
It was the fortune of Persia to be delivered from the Afghan yoke at a time when, under a feeble and corrupt ruler, the national life had been almost crushed out by foreign tyranny. This deliverance was wrought by a man who raised himself from the lowest condition to the head of the kingdom which he restored. Besides this achievement for Persia, Nadir Shah performed deeds of conquest which placed his name among those who have won lasting celebrity by the subjugation of empires.
The Afghans had in 1722 captured Ispahan, the Persian capital, then an important metropolis with six hundred thousand inhabitants. They sacked the city and killed all of the royal family except Hasan, the weak ruler, his son Tamasp, and two grandchildren. From this blow the once magnificent capital of Persia has never recovered. Tamasp became shah in 1727.
How the brief rule of the conquering Afghans was terminated by Nadir Shah, and how he pursued his own bloody path of conquest, Sir John Malcolm, the historian of Persia, relates in a most graphic and comprehensive manner.
Nadir Shah was born in the province of Khorasan. Persian historians pass over the early occurrences of his life, and the first event that these notice is the birth of his eldest son, Reza Kuli, which occurred when he was thirty-one years of age. He had before that experienced great vicissitudes of fortune, and had given proofs both of valor and talent. When only seventeen he was taken prisoner by the Usbegs, who made annual incursions into Khorasan; but he effected his escape after a captivity of four years. His occupation from that period till he entered into the service of Shah Tamasp can only merit notice as it is calculated to show that the character of this extraordinary man was always the same. He was at one time in the service of a petty chief of his native province, whom he murdered, and whose daughter he carried off and married. After this, he obtained a precarioussubsistence by heading a band of robbers; from which occupation he passed, by an easy transition in such troubled times, into the employment of the Afghan Governor of Khorasan, by whom he was at first raised to rank and command, as a reward for his valor in actions with the Usbegs, and afterward degraded and punished with the bastinado on account of his insolent and turbulent conduct.
Irritated at the disgrace he had suffered, Nadir left the city of Mushed, and went to the fort of Khelat in the same province, which was in the possession of his uncle, who appears at this period to have been at the head of a small branch of the Affshars. He resided there but a short time, before his relation, alarmed at his violence and ambition, compelled him to retire. He appears next to have resumed his occupation of a robber; but his depredations were now on a more extended scale. The Afghans had become masters of Ispahan; and the rule of the Suffavean monarchs over the distant provinces of the kingdom was subverted, without that of their conquerors being firmly established. At such a moment a plunderer of known valor and experience could not want followers; and in the course of a short time we find Nadir, a chief of reputation, at the head of a body of three thousand men, levying large contributions on the inhabitants of Khorasan.
His uncle, alarmed at his increasing power, sought his friendship. He addressed a kind letter to him, and proposed that he should enter the service of Shah Tamasp, and aid that Prince in expelling the Afghans from Persia. Nadir pretended to listen to this overture, and earnestly desired that the King should grant him a pardon for his past offences. This was easily obtained; and he went to Khelat to receive it. He appears to have always deemed the Governor of that place as the chief obstacle to his rise; and at this moment he laid a plan to destroy him and to seize his fortress. He completely succeeded in both; and, after having slain his uncle with his own hand, he proceeded to employ the means he had acquired by this crime in overthrowing the Afghan ruler of Khorasan. This popular attack upon the enemies of his country enabled him to obtain a second pardon from Shah Tamasp, whose service he entered, and to whose cause he brought a great accession of strength and reputation.
Shah Tamasp early entertained the greatest jealousy of Nadir: and upon his disobeying a mandate he had sent him to return from an expedition on which he was engaged, the weak monarch ventured to proclaim him a rebel and a traitor. The indignant chief, the moment he heard of these proceedings, marched against the court, which he soon compelled to submit on the terms he chose to dictate. From the occurrence of this open rupture we may date the annihilation of the little power Tamasp had ever enjoyed. Nadir continued to treat him with respect till he deemed the time mature for his usurpation of the throne; but we discover that, as early as his first expedition into Khorasan, he began to prepare the minds of his countrymen for his future elevation.
Like Ardisheer, the founder of the Sassanian race of Persian kings, he had his visions of future grandeur. He saw, we are told, in one of these, a water-fowl and a white fish with four horns; he dreamt that he shot the bird; and, after all his attendants had failed in their attempts to seize the extraordinary fish, he stretched out his hand and caught it with the greatest ease. The simple fact of his dreaming of a bird and a fish, he was informed by flattering astrologers, was a certain presage of his attaining imperial power; and his historian has had a less difficult task in discovering, from subsequent events, that the four horns of the fish were types of the kingdoms of Persia, Khaurizm, India, and Tartary, which were all destined to be conquered by this hero. Such trifles are not unworthy of notice; they show the art or superstition of him who uses or believes in them, and portray better than the most elaborate descriptions the character of those minds upon which they make an impression.
The expulsion of the Afghans from Persia seemed the sole effort of the genius of Nadir; and no reward, therefore, appeared too great for the man who was liberating his country from its cruel oppressors. The grant made by Tamasp to this chief, of the four finest provinces of the empire, was considered only as a just recompense for the great services that he had performed. We are told that in the same letter by which Tamasp conveyed the grant of these countries, or, in other words, alienated half his kingdom, his victorious general was requested to assume the title of sultan, and a diadem, richly set with jewels, was sent by one ofthe noblemen of the court. Nadir accepted all the honors except the title of sultan; that high name he thought would excite envy without conferring benefit; he, however, took advantage of this proffered elevation to the rank of a prince, to exercise one of the most important privileges which attach to monarchs. He directed that his army should be paid in coin brought from the province of Khorasan, and that it should be struck in his own name, which virtually amounted to an assumption of the independent sovereignty of that country.
The armies of the Turks occupied some of the finest parts of the province of Irak and all Azerbaijan. Nadir marched against them as soon as his troops were refreshed from the fatigues they had endured in the pursuit of the Afghans. He encountered the united force of two Turkish pachas on the plains of Hamadan, overthrew them, and made himself master, not only of the city, but of all the country in its vicinity. He hastened to Azerbaijan, where the same success attended him. Tabriz, Ardabil, and all the principal cities of that quarter had surrendered; and the conqueror was preparing to besiege Erivan, the capital of Armenia, when he received from his brother, whom he had left in the government of Khorasan, an account of an alarming rebellion of the Afghans of that province. He hastened to its relief; and his success against the rebels was completed by the reduction of the fortresses of Furrah and Herat. An event occurred, during the siege of the latter city, which marked the barbarous character of this war. Nadir had obtained a victory over a large division of the Afghan force, and resolved to celebrate it with a splendid feast. Among other guests were several prisoners of high rank. During the festivities the heads of three hundred Afghans, who had been slain in the action, were held up on the tops of spears. "At this sight," says the flattering historian of Nadir, "the chiefs of our enemies fixed their eyes upon the ground, and never dared to raise them again, notwithstanding the extraordinary kindness with which they were treated by their great and generous conqueror!"
While Nadir was employed at the siege of Herat the Persian nobles at Ispahan persuaded the weak Tamasp to place himself at the head of an army and march against the Turks, who were again assembling on the frontier. The reverses which the armsof that nation had sustained in Persia had caused a revolution at Constantinople, where the janizaries had first murdered the vizier, and afterward dethroned Achmet, and placed his nephew, Mahmud, upon the throne. To this Prince Nadir had sent an envoy, demanding that the Turks should evacuate the province of Azerbaijan; and Shah Tamasp had sent another with what a Persian historian indignantly terms "a sweet-scented letter of congratulation" upon his elevation to the throne. Before the result of the mission sent by Nadir could be known, Tamasp had marched to besiege Erivan, had retreated from before that fortress, been defeated by a Turkish army, and had lost in one month all that the genius and valor of his general had gained during the preceding season. To render the effects of his weakness complete, the alarmed monarch had agreed to a peace, by which he abandoned the whole of the country beyond the Araxes to the Turks, and ceded five districts of the province of Kirmanshahan to Achmet, the reigning pacha of Bagdad, by whom this treaty was negotiated. The disgrace of this engagement was aggravated by its containing no stipulation for the release of the Persians who had been made prisoners during the war.
The moment that Nadir received accounts of the peace it seems to have occurred to his mind that it afforded an excellent pretext for the consummation of those projects he had so long cherished: but, although bold and impatient, he was compelled to proceed with caution to the extinction of a race of kings to whom obedience had become a habit, and who were at that moment represented by a prince who, though weak and despicable, was endeared to many of his subjects by his misfortunes. His first step was to issue a proclamation, in which he inveighed with bitterness against a treaty which bounded the great empire of Persia by the river Araxes, and left many of the inhabitants of that kingdom prisoners in the hands of cruel enemies. "Such a treaty," he said, "is contrary to the will of Heaven: and the angels who guard the tomb of the holy Ali call aloud for the deliverance of his followers from the bondage in which they are now held by vile heretics."
There is no country, however abject its inhabitants may appear, where the most daring and ambitious can venture to usurp the supreme power without first obtaining a hold on public opinion; we cannot have a stronger proof of this fact, as applicable to Persia, than what we find in the conduct of Nadir upon this memorable occasion. Though that chief had revived the military spirit of his country, and roused a nation sunk in sloth and luxury to great and successful exertion, yet neither this success, the imbecility of Shah Tamasp, nor a reliance upon his own fame and strength could induce him to take the last step of usurpation, until he had, by his arts, excited in the minds of his countrymen that complete contempt for the reigning sovereign, and that pride in his glory, which were likely to make his elevation appear more the accomplishment of their wishes than of his ambition.
At the same time that Nadir published the proclamation which has been mentioned, he addressed letters to all the military chiefs of the country. In that to the Governor of Fars, which has been preserved, he informs him of the great success he has had against the Afghans and of the conquest of Herat. He then proceeds to state the astonishment and indignation with which he has learnt the particulars of the treaty concluded with Turkey. "You will no doubt," he observes, "be rejoiced to hear that, as it was to be hoped from the goodness of God, this peace with the Turks is not likely to endure; and you may rest in expectation of my approach; for, by the blessing of the Most High, I will advance immediately, with an army elated with success, skilled in sieges, numerous as emmets, valiant as lions, and combining with the vigor of youth the prudence of age. Let the cup-bearer," he exclaims, quoting from a popular poet, "tell our enemy, the worshipper of fire, to cover his head with dust, for the water that had departed is returned into its channel." He concludes this letter by threatening, with excommunication and destruction, all Shiahs, or, in other words, all Persians who are adverse to the renewal of hostilities. "Those Shiahs," he observes, "who are backward on this great occasion, and are reconciled to this shameful peace, shall be expelled from the faithful sect and forever counted among its enemies. To slaughter them will be meritorious; to permit their existence impious."
The actions of Nadir corresponded with these declarations. He sent an officer to Constantinople, the duties of whose mission to the Emperor Mahmud were limited to this short message: "Restore the provinces of Persia or prepare for war." A messenger was deputed to Achmet, the Pacha of Bagdad, to apprise him that "the deliverer of Persia" was approaching. A peace had been concluded with the Russians, by which it was stipulated that they should abandon all the conquests they had made on the shores of the Caspian; and Nadir despatched two officers to that quarter to see that there was no delay in the execution of this treaty.
After adopting these measures Nadir marched to Ispahan. He first upbraided Shah Tamasp, and then pretended to be reconciled to him; but the scene of his mock submission to this Prince drew to a close. Tamasp was invited to the tents of his general to share in the joys of a feast, which terminated in his being seized and dethroned. He was sent to Khorasan. The Mahometan author who records these events is careful in informing us that the generosity of Nadir desired that Tamasp, though a prisoner, should be accompanied by all his ladies, and enjoy every other comfort that could be deemed necessary to pleasurable existence.
The time did not yet appear to Nadir to be ripe for his seizing the crown of Persia. The officers of his army and some venal nobles of the court earnestly requested that he, who was alone worthy to wear the diadem, would place it upon his head; but he rejected their entreaties, from pretended respect for the blood of the Suffavean kings. The son of Tamasp, an infant only eight months old, was seated upon the throne, and Nadir accepted the name and power of regent of the empire.
When the ceremonies necessary at this coronation were over, Nadir marched with a large army to the attack of Bagdad. The Governor of that city, Achmet Pacha, was not more distinguished for his talents as a soldier than a statesman; and the Persian leader had made his preparations in the expectation of an obstinate defence; but neither the valor nor skill of Achmet would have saved his city had not the Turkish general Topal Osman advanced, at the head of an immense army, to his relief. Nadir instantly resolved to hazard a battle. He left a small part of his army in his lines, and led the remainder to attack Topal Osman, who was encamped on the banks of the Tigris, near the village of Samarra, which is situated about sixty miles from Bagdad. The action that ensued was one of the most bloody ever fought between the Turks and Persians. It was at first favorable to the latter, whose cavalry put the enemy to flight; but the Turkish infantry advanced and restored the battle. A corps of Arabs, from whom Nadir expected support, fell upon one of his flanks. His men, who had been exposed all day to the intense rays of a summer sun, fainted with heat and thirst. He himself twice fell to the ground, in the midst of his enemies, from his horses being shot; and his standard-bearer, conceiving him slain, fled from the field. All these causes combined to give the victory to Topal Osman; and, after a contest of more than eight hours, the army of Nadir was completely defeated. The moment the news of this event reached Bagdad, the inhabitants of that city fell on the troops left to guard the trenches, who were also routed. The loss of the Persians in this battle was estimated by their enemies at sixty thousand men; and it probably amounted to more than one-third of that number. The Turks suffered almost as severely; but their triumph was very complete; for Nadir did not reassemble the whole of his broken and dispersed army till he reached the plains of Hamadan, a distance of more than two hundred miles from the field of action.
There is no period in the life of Nadir at which he appears to more advantage than after this great misfortune. Instead of reproaching his soldiers with their defeat, he loaded them with praises and with favors. Their losses in money and horses were more than repaid, and they were encouraged by the exhortations as well as the actions of their politic commander to desire nothing so much as an opportunity of revenging themselves upon their enemies. This conduct increased his reputation and popularity to so great a degree that recruits from every part of Persia hastened to join his standard; and in less than three months after this action Nadir descended again into the plains of Bagdad with an army more numerous than before.
His brave antagonist, Topal Osman, had jealous rivals at the court of Constantinople; and these, alarmed at the great fame he had acquired, not only prevented, by their intrigues, his being reënforced with men, but, by withholding the supplies of money that were necessary to pay his troops, compelled him to separate his force. He, nevertheless, made the greatest efforts to opposethis second invasion of Nadir. He sent a corps of cavalry to arrest the progress of the Persians; but the latter, eager for revenge, made such a sudden and furious attack on this body that they completely routed it. On hearing this intelligence, the Turkish general advanced with all the troops he had been able to draw together to his support; but his own army partook of the panic of their flying comrades. Topal Osman endeavored in vain to rally them. He was himself so infirm that he always rode in a litter. His attendants, in the hope that he might escape, lifted him, when the flight became general, upon a horse; but his rich dress attracted the eye of a Persian soldier, who pierced him with his lance, and then, separating his head from his body, carried it to his commander. We are pleased to find that Nadir respected the remains of his former conqueror. His head and corpse were sent by an officer of rank to the Turkish army, that they might receive those honorable rites of sepulture which in all nations are considered due to a great and valiant soldier.
After the death of Topal Osman and the defeat of his army Nadir proceeded to invest Bagdad; but being alarmed at the account of a serious revolt in the province of Fars, he readily listened to the terms which the ruler of the city proposed, which were that the governments of Turkey and Persia should repossess the countries that belonged to them in the reign of Sultan Hasan before the Afghan invasion. The rebellion which had compelled him to retire from the Turkish territories had hardly been suppressed before he learned that the Emperor of Constantinople had refused to ratify the engagements made by the Pacha of Bagdad, and had sent a general, named Abdallah, at the head of a large force, with orders either to conclude peace or to continue the war, as circumstances should render it expedient. Nadir hastened to occupy Armenia and Georgia, which were the principal of the disputed provinces. He threw a bridge over the rapid Araxes; and at once invested the cities of Tiflis, Gunjah, and Erivan, in the hope that the danger with which they were threatened would lead the Turkish general to hazard an action. Nor was he deceived.
Abdallah, encouraged by his superior numbers, left the intrenchments with which he had covered his army, and attacked the Persians on the plains of Baghavund, near Erivan. The Persian leader, when he saw him advancing, addressed his troopsin the most animated language. "Their enemies," he said, "outnumbered them eight to one; but that was only an incitement to glorious exertion. He had dreamt on the past night," he told them, "that a furious animal had rushed into his tent, which, after a long struggle, he had slain. With such an omen," he exclaimed, "success is certain to those who fight under the protection of his great arm, who raiseth the weak to glory, and casteth down the proudest oppressors." If his troops were encouraged by this speech, they were still more so by his example. After his skill had made the most able disposition of his army, he rushed upon the enemy at the head of his bravest men; and wherever he led, the Persians were irresistible. In one of these charges Abdallah Pacha was slain by a soldier, who brought his head to Nadir; and as the battle still raged, he directed it to be fixed upon a spear and to be displayed where it would be best seen by the enemy. The effect was as he anticipated. The Turks, perceiving their general was slain, fled in every direction and left the plain covered with their dead. This victory was followed by the submission of the cities of Gunjah and Tiflis; and those of Kars and Erivan, with all the former possessions of the Persians in that quarter, were soon afterward ceded to him by the policy of the Ottoman court, who, taught by misfortune, were glad to conclude a peace on the basis which had been before settled by the Pacha of Bagdad.
The period was now arrived when Nadir thought he might lay aside the veil which he had hitherto used. An account was brought that the infant sovereign of Persia had died at Ispahan, and consequently that the throne was vacant. It has always been the usage of the kings of Persia to observe the Nuroze, or vernal equinox, as a great festival; and on it all the chief officers, civil and military, of the government appear at court. Nadir issued an order that not only these, but every person of rank and consideration in the kingdom, should meet him on the day of that festival, on the plains of Chowal Mogam, where he ordered a number of temporary buildings to be erected and made every preparation to receive them with splendor and magnificence. We are informed that upward of one hundred thousand persons attended this celebrated meeting; and if this includes the troops, the amount is probably not exaggerated.
Nadir, his historian informs us, assembled the principal nobles and officers on the morning of the festival, and addressed them in the following terms: "Shah Tamasp and Shah Abbas were your kings, and the princes of their blood are the heirs to the throne. Choose one of them for your sovereign, or some other person whom you know to be great and virtuous. It is enough for me that I have restored the throne to its glory and delivered my country from the Afghans, the Turks, and the Russians." He retired, that their deliberations might seem more free, but was soon recalled to hear their unanimous request that he who had saved his country and was alone able to protect it, would accept the crown. He refused this offer, protesting solemnly that the idea of ascending the throne of Persia had never once entered his imagination! The same scene was enacted every day for a month, till Nadir, appearing to be subdued by their earnest solicitations, agreed to comply with their wishes, but said, when he made this apparent concession: "I must insist that, as I sacrifice so much for Persia, the inhabitants of that nation shall, in consideration for one who has no object but their tranquillity, abandon that belief which was introduced by Shah Ismail, the founder of the Suffavean dynasty, and once more acknowledge the legitimate authority of the four first caliphs. Since the schism of Shiah has prevailed," he added, "this country has been in continued distraction; let us all become Sunnis, and that will cease. But as every national religion should have a head, let the holy imam Jaffer, who is of the family of the Prophet, and whom we all venerate, be the head of ours." After the assembly had consented to this change, and a royal mandate had been issued to proclaim it, Nadir informed them that he would communicate what had been done to the Emperor of Constantinople, and require that monarch to give full effect to this advance to general concord among Mahometans; and he would also insist that, as there were now four orthodox sects among Sunnis, the Persians, under the name of the sect of Jaffer, should be admitted as the fifth, and that another column should be added to the four which already decorated the temple at Mecca, in honor of this new branch of the true religion.
The historian of Nadir is careful in informing us that the crown of Persia was placed upon the head of the conqueror exactly at twenty minutes past eight on the morning of February 26,1736. The moment, no doubt, had been fixed by the most skilful astrologers. The ceremony was performed in a splendid hall erected for the occasion, and Nadir was seated on a throne covered with precious jewels. Various coins were immediately struck in his name, on which was the following inscription: "The impression stamped on this gold proclaims to the world the sovereignty of Nadir, native of the land of Persia, and the monarch who subdues the earth." On the reverse was a short Arabic sentence, which signified "That which has happened is the best." But even the flatterer who records these particulars confesses that there were malicious wits who made free with the latter sentence, and, by the alteration of the position of one letter, made it signify "That which has happened is not the best."
Nadir Shah, soon after his elevation to the throne, marched to Ispahan; but the short time he spent in that capital was solely devoted to military preparations; he had resolved on the entire extinction of the Afghans as a separate power, and that could not be effected without the reduction of the city and province of Kandahar, which was then in possession of a prince called Hasan Khan, the brother of the celebrated Mahmud; but before he proceeded upon this expedition he adopted every measure that could secure the internal tranquillity of Persia during his absence. The peace of the country round Ispahan had been much disturbed by the depredations of a numerous and barbarous tribe, called Bukhteearees, who inhabit the mountains that stretch from near this capital to the vicinity of Shuster. The subjugation of these plunderers had ever been deemed possible. Their lofty and rugged mountains abound with rocks and caverns, which in times of danger serve them as fastnesses and dens. But Nadir showed that this fancied security, which had protected them for ages, was a mere delusion. He led his veteran soldiers to the tops of their highest mountains; parties of light troops hunted them from the cliffs and glens in which they were concealed, and in the space of one month the tribe was completely subdued. Their chief was taken prisoner and put to death; but the policy of Nadir treated those of his followers who escaped the first fury of his troops with lenity and favor; he assigned them better but more accessible lands than what they before possessed; he also took a number of them into his army; and this corps, by its extraordinary braveryat the siege of Kandahar, confirmed the wisdom of his generous conduct.
Nadir marched with an army of eighty thousand men through Khorasan and Sistan to Kandahar. He met with no resistance of any consequence before he reached that city; but he found its defences were too formidable to give him hopes of its early surrender. His first resolution was to subdue it by blockade; and he not only made permanent cantonments for his army in its vicinity, but ordered the lines of a new city to be traced out, which he called Nadirabad, or the "Abode of Nadir." He also built towers all around Kandahar, and so connected them with small batteries that it became impossible for the besieged to maintain any intercourse with the surrounding country. Observing, however, that the Afghans were not intimidated by the indications which his conduct gave of his determined resolution to conquer them, and that they had still abundance of provisions, he was compelled, after a year had been wasted in the blockade, to commence a more active course of operations.
The city of Kandahar stood on the face of a hill, and was defended by a wall and by a number of small towers. The Persians made themselves masters of some of the most commanding eminences, to which they conveyed, with incredible labor, both cannon and mortars. Aided by the fire of these, they successively assailed the different towers. At some they were repulsed with great loss; at others they succeeded; but the bravery of the corps of Bukhteearees, who have been before mentioned, was successful in carrying a principal tower, which enabled them to enter the citadel, and placed the whole town at their mercy. The Governor, however, with the principal part of the garrison, still held out in a detached fort; but seeing that resistance was vain, he offered to capitulate, and Nadir readily gave him a promise of forgiveness and protection. It appears at this period to have been the policy of the conqueror to conciliate the Afghans. He had in a very great degree disarmed the prejudices of that nation, by the proclamation which he issued, on ascending the throne, against the tenets of the Shiahs; and he now sought, not merely to soften that resentment, but to attach them to his person and government by favors. He completely succeeded; some of the tribes of that nation continued during his life to rank among thebravest soldiers of his army and formed a powerful check upon the discontent and turbulence of his own countrymen.
While Nadir was employed in besieging Kandahar his generals had been successful in reducing the strongholds in its vicinity; and his eldest son, Reza Kuli, had, during this short period, obtained a fame which seemed to promise that his name would one day equal that of his father. The Afghan Prince of Kandahar had expected aid from the chief of Bulkh, against whom Nadir detached his son, with a chosen body of twelve thousand horse. The Prince not only defeated this ruler and took his capital, but passed the Oxus, and did not hesitate to give battle to the monarch of the Usbegs, who had advanced from Bokhara with an army far outnumbering the Persians. The rash valor of Reza Kuli was crowned with a signal victory; and the career of the young hero was only arrested by a mandate from his father, who desired him to recross the Oxus.
Nadir at the same time addressed two letters to the King of the Usbegs, and to the other chiefs of that part of Tartary, informing them that he had sent orders to his son to retreat within the limits of the Persian empire, and not to disturb countries which were the inheritance of the race of Genghis Khan and of high Turkoman families.
This conduct, which was evidently the result of that policy which affects moderation, that it may better accomplish its ambitious purposes, has been ascribed by some to a jealousy which they conceive Nadir, even at this early period, entertained of the rising reputation of his son; but those who impute it to this cause forget that Reza Kuli, when he returned, was not only received with extraordinary favor and affection, but soon afterward was intrusted with all the power of a sovereign, and left to govern Persia, while his father proceeded with his vast designs of subjugating to his authority the distant regions of India.
When Nadir Shah marched against the Afghans he had sent an ambassador to Delhi requesting the monarch of India would give orders to the governors of his northern provinces not to permit the enemies of Persia to find a refuge from an avenging sword in the territories of an ally. No satisfactory answer had been received to this mission; and, while the Afghans were allowed to take shelter within the limits of the Indian empire, obstacles werethrown in the way of the return of the Persian envoy. Nadir, incensed at these proceedings, pursued the fugitives to Kabul, and not only made himself master of that city, but of all the country in its vicinity. After this conquest he addressed another letter to the Emperor of India, in which he reproached him, in the bitterest terms, for his past conduct, but still professed a desire of maintaining the relations of friendship. The bearer of this letter was slain by the Afghan chief: and Nadir, perhaps, did not regret an event which added to the pretexts that before existed to justify him to the world in undertaking the most splendid of all his enterprises—the invasion of India (1738).
The progress of Nadir from Kabul to India was rapid and successful: almost all the governors of the principal provinces through which he passed anticipated the fate of the empire by their submission; but the conqueror has, in a letter to his son, Reza Kuli, given us the most authentic account we could desire to possess of events from the day on which he left Lahore till that on which he resolved to restore the vanquished Mahomet Shah to the throne of his ancestors. After informing that Prince of an advantage which his troops had gained over an advanced party of his enemies, and describing an ineffectual attempt he had made to prevent the junction of an army under Saadut Khan with Mahomet Shah, he states that the Indian monarch considered himself so strong from his reënforcement that he left his intrenchments, and drew up his troops in order of battle. The result will be best told in Nadir's own words.
"We," he observes, "who wished for such a day, after appointing guards for our camp, and invoking the support of an all-powerful Creator, mounted, and advanced to the charge. For two complete hours the action raged with violence, and a heavy fire from cannon and musketry was kept up. After that, by the aid of the Almighty, our lion-hunting heroes broke the enemy's line and chased them from the field of battle, dispersing them in every direction. This battle lasted two hours; and for two hours and a half more were our conquering soldiers engaged in pursuit. When one hour of the day remained, the field was entirely cleared of the enemy; and as the intrenchments of their camp were strong and the fortifications formidable, we would not permit our army to assault it.
"An immense treasure, a number of elephants, part of the artillery of the Emperor, and rich spoils of every description were the reward of our victory. Upward of twenty thousand of the enemy were slain on the field of battle, and a much greater number were made prisoners. Immediately after the action was over we surrounded the Emperor's army, and took measures to prevent all communication with the adjacent country; preparing at the same time our cannon and mortars to level with the ground the fortifications which had been erected.
"As the utmost confusion reigned in the imperial camp, and all discipline was abandoned, the Emperor, compelled by irresistible necessity, after the lapse of one day, sent Nizam-ul-mulk, on Thursday, the 17th Zilkadeh, to our royal camp; and the day following, Mahomet Shah himself, attended by his nobles, came to our heaven-like presence, in an afflicted state.
"When the Emperor was approaching, as we ourselves are of a Turkoman family, and Mahomet Shah is a Turkoman and the lineal descendant of the noble house of Gurgan, we sent our dear son, Nassr Ali Khan, beyond the bounds of our camp to meet him. The Emperor entered our tents, and we delivered over to him the signet of our empire. He remained that day a guest in our royal tent. Considering our affinity as Turkomans, and also reflecting on the honors that befitted the majesty of a king of kings, we bestowed such upon the Emperor, and ordered his royal pavilions, his family, and his nobles to be preserved; and we have established him in a manner equal to his great dignity.
"At this time the Emperor, with his family and all the lords of Hindustan, who marched from camp, are arrived in Delhi; and on Thursday, the 29th of Zilkadeh, we moved our glorious standard toward that capital.
"It is our royal intention, from the consideration of the high birth of Mahomet Shah, of his descent from the house of Gurgan, and of his affinity to us as a Turkoman, to fix him on the throne of the empire and to place the crown of royalty upon his head. Praise be to God, glory to the Most High, who has granted us the power to perform such an action! For this great grace which we have received from the Almighty we must ever remain grateful.
"God has made the seven great seas like unto the vapor of the desert, beneath our glorious and conquering footsteps and thoseof our faithful and victorious heroes. He has made in our royal mind the thrones of kings and the deep ocean of earthly glory more despicable than the light bubble that floats upon the surface of the wave; and no doubt his extraordinary mercy, which he has now shown, will be evident to all mankind."
The facts stated in this letter are not contradicted either by Persian of Indian historians; though the latter find reasons for the great defeat of their countrymen suffered at Karnal, in the rashness of some of their leaders and the caution of others; and they state that even after the victory the conqueror would have returned to Persia on receiving two millions sterling, if the disappointed ambition of an Indian minister had not urged him to advance to Delhi. But it is not necessary to seek for causes for the overthrow of an army who were so panic-struck that they fled at the first charge, and nearly twenty thousand of whom were slain with hardly any loss to their enemies; and our knowledge of the character of Nadir Shah forbids our granting any belief to a tale which would make it appear that the ultimate advantages to be obtained from this great enterprise, and the unparalleled success with which it had been attended, depended less upon his genius than upon the petty jealousies and intrigues of the captive ministers of the vanquished Mahomet Shah.
The causes which led Nadir to invade India have been already stated; nor were they groundless. The court of Delhi had certainly not observed the established ties of friendship. It had given shelter to the Afghans who fled from the sword of the conqueror; and this protection was likely to enable them to make another effort to regain their lost possessions, and consequently to reinvolve Persia in war. The ambassadors of Nadir, who had been sent to make remonstrances on this subject, had not only been refused an answer, but were prevented from returning, in defiance of the reiterated and impatient applications of that monarch. This proceeding, we are told, originated more in irresolution and indecision than from a spirit of hostility; but it undoubtedly furnished a fair and justifiable pretext for Nadir's advance. Regarding the other motives which induced him to undertake this enterprise, we can conjecture none but an insatiable desire of plunder, a wish to exercise that military spirit he had kindled in the Persians, or the ambitious view of annexing the vast dominions of the sovereign of Delhi to the crown of Persia. But if he ever cherished this latter project he must have been led by a near view of the condition of the empire of India, to reject it as wholly impracticable. We are, however, compelled to respect the greatness of that mind which could resolve, at the very moment of its achievement, upon the entire abandonment of so great a conquest; for he did not even try to establish a personal interest at the court of Delhi, except through the operation of those sentiments which his generous conduct in replacing him upon his throne might make upon the mind of Mahomet Shah.
Nadir claimed, as a prize which he had won, the wealth of the Emperor and a great proportion of that of his richest nobles and subjects. The whole of the jewels that had been collected by a long race of sovereigns, and all the contents of the imperial treasury, were made over by Mahomet Shah to the conqueror. The principal nobles, imitating the example of their monarch, gave up all the money and valuables which they possessed. After these voluntary gifts, as they were termed, had been received, arrears of revenue were demanded from distant provinces, and heavy impositions were laid upon the richest of the inhabitants of Delhi. The great misery caused by these impositions was considerably augmented by the corrupt and base character of the Indian agents employed, who actually farmed the right of extortion of the different quarters of the city to wretches who made immense fortunes by the inhuman speculation, and who collected, for every ten thousand rupees they paid into Nadir's treasury, forty and fifty thousand from the unhappy inhabitants, numbers of whom perished under blows that were inflicted to make them reveal their wealth; while others, among whom were several Hindus of high rank, became their own executioners rather than bear the insults to which they were exposed, or survive the loss of that property which they valued more than their existence.
The approach of Nadir Shah to Delhi had filled the inhabitants of that city with dread; but the strict discipline which his troops observed on their first arrival restored confidence to all. This, however, was but of short duration. The monarch himself had occupied a palace in the city, and had sent some troops to different quarters of it to maintain tranquillity and to protect the inhabitants from insult and injury. The conqueror entered thecapital on March 8th, and on that and the two succeeding days all was quiet; but on the night of the 10th it was reported that Nadir was dead. This report, which was first circulated by some designing persons, instantly spread, and a thoughtless mob made a furious assault upon the Persians who were scattered about the town as safeguards. These, who were divided in small parties, and quite unsuspicious of attack, were almost all murdered; and we must cease to cherish any general sentiments of pity for the depraved nobles of Delhi, when assured by concurring authorities that most of those at whose palaces troops were stationed for their protection gave them up without effort to the fury of the populace, and even in some instances assisted in their destruction.
Nadir, when he first heard of this tumult, sent several persons to explain to the populace their delusion and their danger; but his messengers were slain. He remained with all the Persians he could assemble in the palace which he occupied till the day dawned, when he mounted his horse and rode forth to endeavor, by his presence, to quell the tumult. But his moderation only inflamed the insolence and fury of those whom, even Indian historians inform us, it was his desire to spare; and he at last gave his troops, who had arrived from their encampment near the city, orders for a general massacre. He was too well obeyed: the populace, the moment the Persians began to act, lost all their courage; and from sunrise till twelve o'clock Delhi presented a scene of shocking carnage, the horrors of which were increased by the flames that now spread to almost every quarter of that capital.
Nadir, after he had issued the fatal orders, went into the small mosque of Roshin-u-dowlah, which stands near the centre of the city, and remained there in a deep and silent gloom that none dared to disturb. At last the unhappy Mahomet Shah, attended by two of his ministers, rushed into his presence, exclaiming, "Spare my people!" Nadir replied, "The Emperor of India must never ask in vain," and he instantly commanded that the massacre should cease. The prompt obedience which was given to this command is remarked by all his historians as the strongest proof of the strict discipline which he had introduced into his army.
The number of persons slain on this occasion has been differently estimated, and from the nature of the scene it could not be correctly ascertained. An author who has been often referred to conjectures that about one hundred twenty thousand perished; while another European writer nearly doubles this amount. But an Indian historian of respectability reduces this exaggerated estimate to the moderate calculation of eight thousand persons: and there is every reason to conclude that his statement is nearer the truth than any of those which have been mentioned. Two nobles who were supposed to have caused the riot fled, with conscious guilt, to a small fortress near Delhi. They were pursued, taken, and put to death with those who were deemed their accomplices, who amounted to about four hundred persons.
A very few days after the occurrence of these events, a marriage was celebrated between the second son of Nadir and a princess of the imperial house of Timur; and the succession of festivities that attended these nuptials gave a color of joy to scenes which abounded with misery; but the majority of the inhabitants of Delhi appear to have been of a light and dissolute character. We are indeed told by an Indian author that numbers regretted the departure of the Persians. The drolls and players of the capital began, immediately after they went away, to amuse their countrymen with a ludicrous representation of their own disgrace; and the fierce looks and savage pride of their conquerors, which had been so late their dread, became in these imitations one of their chief sources of entertainment.
Nadir remained at Delhi fifty-eight days (1739). Before he quitted it, he had a long and secret conference with Mahomet Shah, in which it is supposed he gave him such counsel as he deemed best to enable him to preserve that power to which he was restored. To all the nobles of the court he spoke publicly, and warned them to preserve their allegiance to the Emperor, as they valued his favor or dreaded his resentment. To those who were absent he wrote in similar terms; he informed them that he was so united in friendship with Mahomet Shah that they might be esteemed as having one soul in two bodies; and, after desiring them to continue to walk in the path of duty to the imperial house of Timur, he concluded these circular-letters in the following words: "May God forbid! but if accounts of your rebellingagainst your Emperor should reach our ears we will blot you out of the pages of the book of creation."
The conqueror had behaved with considerable moderation and kindness toward the chief omrahs of the court of Delhi; but he must have despised their luxurious and effeminate habits. We, indeed, learn his sentiments from a remarkable anecdote. When speaking one day to Kummer-u-din, who was then vizier, he demanded how many ladies he had? "Eight hundred fifty," was the reply. "Let one hundred fifty of our female captives," said Nadir, "be sent to the vizier, who will then be entitled to the high military rank of amim-bashee, or commander of a thousand."
The march of Nadir from India was literally encumbered with spoil. The amount of the plunder that he carried from that country has been estimated variously. The highest calculation makes it upward of seventy millions sterling; the lowest is considerably more than thirty. A great part of this was in precious stones, of which Nadir was immoderately fond. When on his march from India he was informed that several of the most valuable crown-jewels had been secreted by some of his followers, he made this a pretext for searching the baggage of every man in his army, and appropriating all the jewels that were found to himself. The soldiers murmured, but submitted; and their not resisting this despotic act is an extraordinary proof of the subordination which he had established. He was, however, in general kind and liberal to his troops: he had given to each man a gratuity of three months' pay at the fall of Kandahar; he gave them as much more after the victory of Karnal; and they received a still greater bounty before he marched from Delhi.
The troops of Nadir, we are told, suffered much in their retreat from India by the intense heat to which they were exposed. Their passage over the rivers of the Punjab and the Indus was delayed by accidents to the temporary bridges which he had constructed, and in one instance by the threatened attack of the mountaineers of Kabul, whose forbearance the proud conqueror did not disdain to purchase; and when we consider the nature of the country through which he had to pass, the immense train of baggage with which his army was accompanied, and the danger that might have arisen from the slightest confusion, we cannot blame the prudence with which he acted upon this occasion.
The greatest expectation was excited in Persia at the prospect of the return of their victorious monarch. The inhabitants of that country had already felt the benefit of his triumphs. He had commanded that all taxes should be remitted for three years: and they began to anticipate scenes of unheard-of joy and abundance. The most exaggerated reports were circulated of the vast riches which their sovereign and his soldiers had acquired; and all conceived that Nadir was disposed to enjoy himself, from the number of artificers and musicians which he brought from India. Curiosity, too, was eager to behold the train of elephants which attended his march. That noble animal had become a stranger to the plains of Persia; and the natives of that country were only familiar with its shape from seeing its figure represented in the sculpture of ancient times. Sanguine minds were led, by a natural association of ideas, to believe that their present ruler was the destined restorer of their country to its former glory; and the conqueror was hailed, at his return, as a hero whose fame had eclipsed that of a Sapor or a Nushirwan.
The soldiers of Nadir were, we are informed, after the expedition to India, most anxious for repose; but that Prince was too well acquainted with the consequences of this indulgence to permit them to enjoy it. He had, after he passed the Indus, led them through the deserts of Sind to the attack of a feudatory chief, who had established himself in the government of that province. This ruler had courted Nadir Shah when he first threatened the invasion of India, as he deemed such a measure favorable to his views of independence; but when his possessions were made over to the Persian monarch he changed his policy; and, lodging all his treasure and property in the fortress of Amerkote, made a feeble attempt at opposition; but his capital was taken and plundered, and he was compelled to surrender himself to the mercy of the conqueror; who, however, satisfied with his submission and the possession of his wealth, restored him to the government of the province, which he agreed henceforth to hold as a tributary to the crown of Persia.
After this expedition Nadir marched to Herat, where he made a proud display of the jewels and plunder he had acquired in India; among which the most remarkable was the celebrated throne of the Emperor of Delhi, made in the shape of a peacock,and ornamented with precious stones of every description. This gorgeous exhibition took place on June 4, 1740; and on that day and several others the court, army, and populace were amused with pageants, shows, and entertainments of every kind; but Nadir, though satisfied that this public celebration of triumph was calculated to raise his fame with his subjects and to gratify the vanity of his soldiers, appears always to have dreaded the danger of inaction. He moved his army from Herat; and after meeting his son, Reza Kuli, and bestowing valuable presents upon him and the other princes of his family, he moved toward Bulkh, where he had ordered preparations to be made for his crossing the Oxus to punish the sovereign of Bokhara, who, unmindful of his established alliance, had taken advantage of his absence in India to make inroads into the province of Khorasan.
The motives which induced Nadir to proceed upon this expedition were soon apparent. He had no desire to extend the boundary of his empire in a direction where he knew it could not be maintained, but he wished to visit upon the inhabitants of this part of Tartary those calamities which they were in the annual habit of inflicting upon the frontier provinces of Persia. Abul Fyze Khan, who was the ruler of the Usbegs at this period, boasted a lineal descent from Genghis; but he appears to have inherited none of the spirit of his great ancestor. He was terrified into submission at the approach of Nadir, and sent his vizier to deprecate the wrath of that monarch. The minister was well received, but told that his master must immediately surrender if he desired to save himself from destruction and his country from ruin. While these negotiations were carried on the Persian army advanced by rapid marches to Bokhara, and on August 23d, five days after they had crossed the Oxus, encamped within twelve miles of that capital, where his short expedition was brought to a close by the personal submission of Abul Fyze Khan, who, attended by all his court, proceeded to the tents of Nadir Shah, and laid his crown and other ensigns of royalty at the feet of the conqueror, who assigned him an honorable place in his assembly; and a few days afterward restored him to his throne on the condition that the Oxus should remain, as it had been in former periods, the boundary of the two empires. This treaty was cemented by an alliance between the daughter of the ruler of Bokhara andthe nephew of his conqueror; and after its conclusion a great number of Tartars were, with the concurrence of their own monarch, enrolled in the Persian army, whose commander probably esteemed the services of these hardy warriors as of more consequence to the peace of his own dominions and the fulfilment of his future views of ambition than all the wealth he had brought from India.
The arms of Nadir were next directed against the kingdom of Khaurizm, which is situated to the westward of Bokhara, and stretches along both banks of the Oxus to the shores of the Caspian Sea. The Prince of this country, whose name was Ilburz, neither merited nor received such human treatment as Abul Fyze Khan. He had committed frequent depredations upon the Persian territories; and, conceiving that the strength of his fortresses would secure him from vengeance, he resolved on resistance. The King of Bokhara had sent a mission to advise him to submit to the arms of Nadir: he not only treated this friendly counsel with disdain, but, in violation of laws which the most savage nations respect, he slew those through whom it was conveyed. This conduct greatly irritated the monarch of Persia, who, after he had defeated his army and made him prisoner, doomed him and twenty of his chief officers to death. The possessions of Ilburz were bestowed upon Taher Khan, a cousin of the sovereign of Bokhara, and consequently a direct descendant of the celebrated Genghis.
When the winter of this year was far advanced, Nadir marched to Khelat, to which place he continued from his most early years to be much attached. He had directed that its fortifications should be improved, that a palace should be built, and that aqueducts should be constructed to improve the fertility of its fields. He had also ordered that all his treasures should be carried thither; and a peaceful retirement to this cherished spot, after the toils and dangers of war were at an end, was one of the most innocent of those dreams which amused the fancy of this indefatigable conqueror.
After a short residence at Khelat Nadir proceeded to Mushed, which he made the capital of his empire; and during three months that he remained in this city his time was passed in constant festivities. Five monarchs had been subdued in five years. Theempire of Persia had not only been rescued from a foreign yoke, but its limits had been extended as far as the Oxus to the north and the Indus to the east; and the hero by whom all this had been accomplished promised his exulting subjects that the Turks should soon be driven from the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates; but honor required that, before any other expedition was undertaken, Nadir should revenge the blood of his brother, Ibrahim Khan, who had been slain in an attack of the Lesghis.
When the army was on its march to Daghestan an event occurred which cast a dark cloud over all the fair prospects that dawned upon Persia, and exhibited in the strongest view the miserable condition of those empires whose fate hangs upon the disposition and talents of a despotic sovereign. An advanced corps, chiefly composed of Afghans, had, by their extraordinary valor, gained the greatest advantages over the Lesghis; and Nadir was hastening by the way of Mazandaran to their support, when, pursuing his march through one of the forests in that country, a ball from an assassin, who had concealed himself behind a tree, wounded him in the hand and killed his horse. The Prince, Reza Kuli, who was near him, galloped toward the spot from which the shot had been fired; but neither his efforts nor those of his guards that aided him could succeed in the attempts to seize the fugitive, who, favored by the thickness of the wood, effected his escape. He was afterward taken; and the historian of Nadir asserts that he was the agent of a chief of a barbarous tribe who cherished a secret resentment against the conqueror.
This accident, though it made a deep and indelible impression upon the mind of Nadir, did not prevent his proceeding to attack the Lesghis; but he never engaged in an enterprise of more hazard. These mountaineers defended themselves with the most desperate bravery; and the rugged nature of the whole country of Daghestan, which they inhabit, made it almost impossible to subdue them. The bravest troops of the Persian army were worn out with the fatigue of this harassing war; and the preparations which the Russians began to make at Astrakhan, though dictated by a fear that Nadir meant to invade their country after he had subdued the Lesghis, gave the latter every encouragement to persevere in their resistance; and the Persian monarch wascompelled to retire from this expedition with very partial success and very great loss.
Nadir had, from the day on which his life was attempted, entertained suspicions of his eldest son, Reza Kuli. He summoned him to his presence. The Prince instantly obeyed, and was on his arrival made prisoner and deprived of sight. A respectable European writer, who went to Persia two years after this event, asserts that the assassin who fired at Nadir in the wood of Mazandaran was employed by the prince Reza Kuli; who, he informs us, though brave and able, was violent and oppressive. He had, this author asserts, on hearing that Nadir was dead when on his expedition to India, declared himself king, and at the same time put the unfortunate Shah Tamasp, who was confined at Subzawar, in Khorasan, to death. The same writer assures us that Nadir, though convinced of the guilt of his son, addressed him in the mildest and most human terms, and offered him complete pardon if he would only confess his crime and promise repentance; but that the fierce youth rejected this offer, and said he gloried in the attempt he had made to rid the world of a tyrant, and provoked his fate by the coarsest abuse of his father and sovereign. It is probable that this author received the account which he has given of this transaction from some person who was desirous of palliating the guilt of a reigning tyrant; but we are compelled to refuse our credit of this statement.
The flattering historian of Nadir expressly informs us that that sovereign was deceived, by the gross misrepresentations of infamous men, into the commission of this great crime. The European physician who attended that monarch during the latter years of his life asserts the innocence of Reza Kuli. He adds that Nadir was so penetrated with remorse after the deed of horror was done that he vented his fury on all around him; and fifty noblemen, who had witnessed the dreadful act, were put to death on the pretext that they should have offered their lives as sacrifices to save the eyes of a prince who was the glory of their country. It is also to be remarked that the impressions which have been transmitted regarding a fact comparatively recent are all against Nadir, who is believed to have had no evidence of his son's guilt but his own suspicions. From the moment that his life had been attempted in Mazandaran that monarch had become gloomyand irritable. His bad success against the Lesghis had increased the natural violence of his temper and, listening to the enemies of Reza Kuli, he, in a moment of rage, ordered him to be blinded.
"Your crimes have forced me to this dreadful measure," was, we are told, the speech that Nadir made to his son. "It is not my eyes you have put out," replied Reza Kuli, "but those of Persia." The prophetic truth of this answer sunk deep into the soul of Nadir; and we may believe his historian, who affirms that he never afterward knew happiness nor desired that others should enjoy it. All his future actions were deeds of horror, except the contest which he carried on against the Turks for three years; and even in it he displayed none of that energy and heroic spirit which marked his first wars with that nation.
The Persian army had made unsuccessful efforts to reduce the cities of Basra, of Bagdad, and of Mussul. Nadir marched early in the succeeding year to meet a large Turkish force which had advanced to near Erivan; and we are told that he desired to encounter his enemies in battle on the same plain where he had ten years before acquired such renown; but their general, subdued by his own fears, fled and was massacred by his soldiers; who, thrown into confusion at this event, were easily routed by the Persians. This was the last victory of Nadir, and it was gained merely by the terror of his name. Sensible of his own condition he hastened to make peace. His pretensions regarding the establishment of a fifth sect among orthodox Mahometans and the erection of a fifth pillar in the Mosque of Mecca were abandoned. It was agreed that prisoners on both sides should be released; that Persian pilgrims going to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina should be protected; and that the whole of the provinces of Irak and Azerbaijan should remain with Persia, except an inconsiderable territory that had belonged to the Turkish government in the time of Shah Ismail, the first of the Suffavean kings.
The conduct of Nadir to his own subjects during the last five years of his reign had been described, even by a partial historian, as exceeding in barbarity all that has been recorded of the most bloody tyrants. The acquisition of the wealth of India had at first filled the mind of this monarch with the most generous and patriotic feelings. He had proclaimed that no taxes should becollected from Persia for three years. But the possession of riches had soon its usual effect of creating a desire for more; and while the vast treasures he had acquired were hoarded at the fort of Kelat, which, with all the fears of a despot, he continually labored to render inaccessible, he not only paid his armies, but added to his golden heaps, from the arrears of remitted revenue, which he extorted with the most inflexible rigor.
Nadir knew that the attack which he had made upon the religion of his country had rendered him unpopular, and that the priests, whom he peculiarly oppressed, endeavored to spread disaffection. This made him suspect those who still adhered to the tenets of the Shiah sect, or, in other words, almost all the natives of Persia. The troops in his army upon whom he placed most reliance were the Afghans and Tartars, who were of the Sunni persuasion. Their leaders were his principal favorites; and every pretext was taken to put to death such Persian chiefs as possessed either influence or power. These proceedings had the natural effect of producing rebellion in every quarter, and the spirit of insurrection which now displayed itself among his subjects changed the violence of Nadir into outrageous fury. His murders were no longer confined to individuals: the inhabitants of whole cities were massacred; and men, to use the words of his historian, left their abodes, and took up their habitations in caverns and deserts, in the hope of escaping his savage ferocity. We are told—and the events which preceded render the tale not improbable—that when on his march to subdue one of his nephews who had rebelled in Sistan, he proposed to put to death every Persian in his army. There can be little doubt that his mind was at this moment in a state of frenzy which amounted to insanity. Some of the principal officers of his court, who learned that their names were in the list of proscribed victims, resolved to save themselves by the assassination of Nadir. The execution of the plot was committed to four chief men who took advantage of their stations, and, under the pretext of urgent business, rushed past the guards into the inner tents, where the tyrant was asleep. The noise awoke him; and he had slain two of the meaner assassins, when a blow from Salah Beg deprived him of existence.