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294 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. claimant to the chieftainship invoking .the king's assis- tance, on the condition of his promising to acknowledge the king's right to sovereignty over the province. But in the course of the year in which Mahomed Shah was crowned, Yar Mahomed Khan, the Yizeer of Kamran, succeeded in establishing either his own or his master's authority in Seistan, and he thereby furnished another pretext for the hostilities which the Persian monarch now determined to undertake against the Prince of Herat. At this time the British government was, by the treaty then in existence with Persia, not entitled to inter- fere in the international affairs of the two countries with each other : it was, in fact, bound not to interfere between them. It was the interest of Russia at this juncture to encourage the designs entertained by the Shah against the tranquillity of Afghanistan, inasmuch as if Herat, or any portion of that country, should become a portion of the dominions of the King of Persia, the Czar would, by the treaty of Turkomanchai, become entitled to place consuls there for the protection of Russian trade. Out- ward symbols, and the conscientiously-rendered services of a few well-chosen agents, can effect much on peoples so impressible as those of the countries of the East ; and in view of this fact, the Government of his Britannic Majesty did wisely in opposing itself to the expedition which the Shah announced ; the evident or avowed pur- pose of which was the conquest of Herat or the subjuga- tion of Affghanistan. While the question was still under discussion, and while the Shah had not yet set out from Tehran, Prince Kamran thought proper to add fuel to the flame which had been already kindled, by putting some Persians in his dominions to death, and by driving others