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 DILEMMA OF THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT. 415 minister, and it devolved on that functionary to point out the alternative line of conduct that lay open to his master. There was another way, the Vizeer said, by which the Shah might be admitted to take his place amongst the princes and rulers whose decisions swayed the affairs of the great world. If it was open to him to act with Eussia against the allies, so might it be open to him to cooperate with the allies against Kussia. His weight would be equally felt in either scale of the balance. If England and France should take up arms for Turkey, the allies would be as three to one, and it would be prudent for Persia to join the stronger side. She might by declaring war against Kussia break up for ever the Treaty of Turkomanchai, and win back her severed provinces. By reuniting them to Persia, the Shah would endear himself to his people, and his memory to their children, as surely as he could by adding to his dominions the holy cities of the Arabian desert. The Shah was at this time a youth, and the words of his minister seemed to him those of the wisdom of age. He therefore fell in with his reasoning so far as to determine to proceed no longer in the course indicated to him by Prince Dolgorouky. Although orders had been issued for assembling a force of forty thousand men in Azerbaeejan, to be commanded by the Sirdar Azeez Khan, and a force of fifteen thou- sand men in Kerrnanshah, to be commanded by the chief of the royal body guard, it was determined to watch for the present the course df events, and not to conclude the treaty with Kussia to which the Shah had given his consent. The Russian representative could not fail to draw from this change of purpose the conclusion that the