Page:Historyofpersiaf00watsrich.djvu/135

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CONSPIRACY AGAINST FETTEH ALI
115

Mahomed some effort would be made by the chiefs of the tribes of Zend to recover their paramount influence in Persia; and therefore it is not surprising to read of the attempt made by Mahomed Khan to dispute the peaceable accession to power of Fetteh Ali Shah: but that monarch had also to encounter rivalry from far different quarters.

Sadek Khan, Shekaki, with Jafer Kuli Khan, the Beglerbegi of Azerbaeejan, and Mahomed Kuli Khan, the governor of Uroomeeah, formed a conspiracy against the king, and appeared in the field at the head of twenty thousand men. Suleiman Khan, Kajar, was despatched against them with twelve thousand men, and he was followed by the king in person. Suleiman Khan, however, contrived to sow dissension in the councils of the conspirators. Mahomed Kuli Khan went to Uroomeeah, and Jafer Kuli to Khoi, while Sadek Khan came to throw himself at the king's feet at his camp of Nekpeh, where he made over to his majesty the last of the crown jewels, which he had detained, and where he once more obtained the royal pardon. Mahomed Kuli Khan sent his Georgian page to the Pasha of Baghdad, and demanded assistance, which the Pasha positively refused to give him. He then attempted to escape from Uroomeeah, but, finding himself intercepted, he returned to that place and shut himself up in the citadel, where he remained a prisoner until the Shah's arrival, when he was taken to Tehran and put to death.

At this time the Shah received the submission of the chiefs of Genja, Derbend, and Koobeh, and also that of Goorgeen Khan, son of the late Czar of Georgia, who addressed a petition stating that his father Heraclius,