to express his apprehensions lest General Paskiewitch should accept the Persian gold and then expend it in the prosecution of the war. It was fortunate that there yet remained one person to whose word the Shah expressed himself willing to trust. This was Sir John Macdonald, the British envoy; and Fetteh Ali positively refused to pay any portion of the sum asked by Russia unless the English representative would guarantee that General Paskiewitch would fulfil the conditions of the contract. This pledge, at the request of the Russian general, was readily given by Sir John Macdonald, and the negotiations were accordingly proceeded with. But it required the utmost pressure to induce the aged Shah to agree to the sum to which the Russian plenipotentiaries consented to reduce their demand, and it was to the personal influence exerted over his majesty by Mr. McNeill, of the British Mission, that the conclusion of peace was in a great measure to be ascribed. A treaty was at length agreed to on the 21st of February, 1828, by the plenipotentiaries assembled at Turkomanchai, a village a few miles to the west of the pass of Kaflankoh. The Shah's consent had not been given too soon, for the rebellious chiefs of Azerbaeejan had offered to the Russian general the assistance of 15,000 horsemen in the march to Tehran; and his Excellency, tired of delay and mistrustful of the honesty of the Shah, was preparing to move on the capital.
