Note 106 — Chapter VIII

Though we need not seek the causes of this expedition in anything either nearer or more remote than the ambition of the young Shah and the intrigues of the Russian Government, a pretext was put forth by, or for Persia, of a more plausible kind. It was urged that the Heratees had carried off and sold into slavery the subjects of the Persian Shah. There is no doubt of the fact. But it was never put prominently forward by the Shah, who always urged that Herat had no right to be independent. Another pretext, but a weak one, for undertaking the war was also alleged. Hulakoo, son of the Prince of Kerman, after his father was taken and blinded, and Kerman occupied by the Shah’s troops, fled to Herat, and from thence endeavoured to excite disturbances in Kain, Khaf, and Eastern Kerman.