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292 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. tion of Herat, and the conquest of a considerable portion of Affghanistan. The pretensions of the Persian govern- ment to sovereignty in that direction were at this time, somewhat arbitrarily, stated by the Shah's prime minister to extend over that portion of the country which lay be- tween the Iranian frontier and the fortress of Ghizni. The successes of the late Prince Abbass Meerza had alone been the cause of these antiquated pretensions being now advanced. The claim to dominion over Afghanistan had been renounced by Persia in the first treaty with the Government of India, inasmuch as the Affghans were acknowledged to be an independent power ; and as the whole of Affghanistan had belonged to the dominions of the Sefaveean princes, it was evident that the Kajar Shahs, as the successors of those princes, could only in reason claim the whole of the country in question if they laid claim to any portion of it. According to the opinion of those who have made the principles of international law their peculiar study, so long a time had elapsed since the country of the Affghans had passed from the power of the Persian kings, that Mahomed Shah had no suffi- cient claim, based upon the law of nations, to any portion 6f Affghanistan, in as far as such claim was founded on the extent of the dominions of former Persian kings. If such a pretension had been admitted to be a just one, the Shah might with equal fairness have claimed his right to establish by force of arms his dominion over the territory lying between the Kurdish mountains and the Tigris ; or, if there were to be no fixed period of limita- tion, he might have laid claim to what Persia had once possessed in Asia Minor. But the Shah had now other and more valid grounds