Page:Historyofpersiaf00watsrich.djvu/336

 316 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. some time before a sufficient number of mules could be collected. Count Simonich took advantage of this delay to send a letter into the city offering to interfere between the Shah and Prince Kamran ; but the prudent Vizeer of Herat returned no answer to the proposal of the Eussian Minister. By this time rumours had reached the place of the preparations on the part of the Government of India for a military expedition, undertaken with the view of restoring the Sedozye Shah Shuja to power. The news greatly depressed the Barukzye allies of the Shah, who had. come to his camp from Kandahar ; and, as might have been anticipated, the same intelligence caused a corresponding rise in the spirits of the Sedozye defenders of Herat. Seeing an approaching termination to the siege which they had so gallantly sustained, the Affghan rulers were no longer willing to accede to the terms of the treaty which had been rejected by the Persian king; and this information was communicated by his Majesty to Colonel Stoddart on the 19th of August. His Majesty wished Colonel Stoddart to state whether the tritish Government desired him to depart from before erat without having made any arrangement with Prince Kamran. The English officer volunteered, if authorized to do so by the Shah, to enter the city and endeavour to bring the ruler of that place to conclude the treaty which had been drafted by Mr. McNeill ; but the Shah finally determined to break up his camp and to retire from before Herat, without having concluded any arrangement with Prince Kamran. The latter ruler was now reap- ing the fruits of the long course of dissoluteness and debauchery in which he had indulged while he had entrusted the management of his state to Yar Mahomed