TORTUOUS POLICY OF PERSIA. 307 English mission on the evening of the succeeding day ; but the promise made by Haji Meerza Aghassi was not fulfilled, and when Mr. McNeill asked for an explana- tion, he was informed that the Shah required to be indemnified for the losses he had sustained, or at least that he should receive a sum of money to distribute amongst his troops, who had suffered great privations. Mr. McNeill remonstrated against this attempt to annex new conditions to a treaty which had been already agreed to, not only by the Persian prime minister but by the Shah himself, and the formal conclusion of which had been prevented only by the impediments opposed to it by the Persian government, in violation of the written promises of the prime minister. On the following morning Mr. McNeill received a note from Haji Meerza Aghassi, which stated, in reply to his remonstrance, that the treaty could not be considered as binding on Persia, because the Affghans still continued to fire and to make sorties ; declaring that the losses of Persia in this campaign had amounted to five or six crores of tomans ;* expressing his conviction that the British Government could not desire to see Persia exposed to so great a loss ; and concluding by what he said was mentioned merely in jest, viz. that as Mr. McNeill was reported to have given a large sum of money to the Vizeer of Herat when he had visited that place, it was hard that he should have given nothing to the writer. It was evidently hopeless to continue negotiations between two princes, the minister of one of whom could so easily repudiate his own written agreements. The cause of the sudden change in the views of the Shah was the arrival of a
- One and a quarter or one and a half million of pounds sterling.
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