CHARACTER OF THE AMEER. 405 this theory for accounting for the appearance, in these latter years in Persia, of a man so remarkable as Meerza Teki Khan. His career seems rather to be illustrative of the truth of the proposition so much insisted on by the author of the History of Civilization in England :* namely, that a people makes its own government, and that no government can force progress if the people be unsound. The Ameer's measures were distasteful to so many per- sons, that the Shah was compelled to listen to the cry of discontent ; consequently, the upright ruler fell, and a Vizeer was named in his place whose character was more in accordance with that of the persons he had to govern, and who permitted those he employed to imitate his own example of extorting bribes. What the Ameer had with so much difficulty effected was now at once undone. The soldiers were no longer paid, until after years of entreaty ; peculation became once more rampant in every department of the administration ; priestly influ- ence again acquired undue ascendancy ; and Persian titles were heaped upon the great with even more prodigality than ever. The shocking fate of Meerza Teki Khan excited, how- ever, the greatest horror throughout Europe, and the Shah and his new Minister had to listen to the indignant protests and remonstrances called forth from foreign governments by the sentence which had been executed at Kashan. Then followed the hour of remorse. When too late the Persian king, as well as many of his subjects, became sensible of the irreparable loss their country had sustained. It is said that the king, in his grief, re-
- See BUCKLE'S History of Civilization in England, pp. 115 and 146-150,
vol. ii., 1861.
