XIV 
INTRODUCTION. 
numbers, attended by all the state and parade of the most respected 
of the Khans and Mirzas, used daily to stand before the Sovereign at 
his Durbar. 
On the 13th of March, 1779? Kerim Khan died a natural death, 
an extraordinary occurrence in the modern history of Persia, having 
reigned (according to the different dates assigned to his accession, 
from the deaths of different competitors) from nineteen to thirty years. 
From the fall of Mahomed Hass an Khan the better epoch, his 
conqueror lived nineteen years, with almost undisputed authority. 
After his death all was again in confusion; and the kingdom pre¬ 
sented a renewal of blood and usurpation. It is scarcely necessary to 
state the short-lived struggles of his successors: their very names have 
ceased to interest us. It is sufficient therefore to add, that his sons 
and brothers, and other relatives, attacked each other for fourteen years 
after his death; till the fortunes of the whole family were finally over¬ 
whelmed in the defeat of Loolf Ali Khan, the last and greatest of 
these claimants; and the dominion was transferred, in the year 1794, 
to his conqueror, Aga Mahomed Khan, of the present royal race 
of Persia. 
In latter years, during the war between the East India Company 
and Tip poo Saib, under the administration of the Marquis Welles¬ 
ley, the political relations of England and Persia were renewed. An 
embassy, which Tippoo sent to Eatteh Ali Shah, the present King 
of Persia, was followed soon after by a rival mission, which the Indian 
government confided to the care of Meiiede Ali Khan, a man of 
