'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎578] (645/714)

578
PERSIA
in Asia, as well as a salary of 2,200/. a year while in Persia. He
finally died, and was buried in the Armenian cemetery at Teheran
in February, 1851. In 1812, a rumour having reached Tabriz of
reconciliation between Great Britain and Ilussia in Europe, Sir
Gore Ouseley ordered the English officers in the Persian service to
take no further part in the Perso-Hussian campaign still proceed
ing in Azerbaijan. Abbas Mirza, however, pleaded so urgently,
that two officers, Christie and Lindsay, and thirteen sergeants were
permitted to stay. Christie paid the penalty with his life, being
killed by a Russian officer while lying wounded on the ground, on
the battle-field of Aslanduz, in October 1812. He was succeeded
in command of the Persian infantry by Major Hart, of the Royal
army, who, till his death of cholera at Tabriz in 1830, 1 occupied a
position unequalled by that of any other British officer in Persia.
He acquired an extraordinary inlluence alike over the king, who
entrusted him with the money for the payment of the Azerbaijan
troops, ' having more confidence in the honour of an English
major than in that of his own son '; over Abbas Mirza, who never
failed to support him, even when he ordered the Royal Princes to
mount guard, and gave them no rations but dry bread for three
days; and over the Persian soldiers, who, in spite of the strict
discipline that he enforced, regarded him with respect and admira
tion. The termination of the Perso-Russian War by the Treaty ot
Gulistan in 1813, was followed by a third Anglo-Persian Treaty,
signed at Teheran in November 1814. in pursuance of the terms of
which the British Government continued to supply officers for
drill and discipline, arms and munitions of warfare, and the
material and workmen for a foundry at Tabriz, where guns and
shot of every description were cast, gun-carriages built, and very
tolerable powder manufactured at a cost of A^d. per lb., in a mill
outside the town. 2 The war with Russia being, however, at an
end, and no immediate peril overhanging, Abbas Mirza, who was
1 He died on the same day in June, 1830, as the British Minister, Sir John Mac-
donald Kinneir. Having expired outside the city, and the Persians having a pre
judice against the conveyance of corpses through city gates, his body was dressed
in full uniform, and brought in, sitting upright, as if alive, in a iakht-i-ravan, or
litter, for interment in the Armenian Church.
2 Sir J. Sheil spoke very favourably of the foundry and arsenal of Tabriz; but
Fraser, in 1821, delivered the following uncomplimentary verdict: ' The arsenal
of Abbas Mirza is on a scale more suited to the shooting closet of a private gen
tleman than the magazine of a siaie.''— Jovrney into Khorasav, pp. 223-30.