INTRODUCTION. 
The history of Persia from the death of Nadir Shah to the 
accession of the present King, comprehending a period of fifty-one 
years, presents little else than a catalogue of the names of tyrants 
and usurpers, and a succession of murders, treacheries and scenes 
of misery. 
After the assassination of Nadir, one of the most formidable of 
the competitors for the vacant throne, was Mahomed Hassan 
Khan, the head of the Cadjar tribe, and a person of high rank 
among the nobles of Siiah Tiiamas, the last king of the Seffi race.* 
* The Cadjars , according to Olivier, are a tribe of Turkish origin, who took refuge 
in Persia under the reign of Siiah Abbas I. and received there the name of Cadjars or 
fugitives. See Foster, ii. 198. The historians of Nadir Shah mention (as one of the 
chiefs of that tribe, in the time of Shah Tahmas,) Futteh Ali Khan. Olivier states 
that in 1723 he was nominated to the government of Mazanderan ; and that, when Nadir 
Shah assumed the crown, he resisted his authority, was defeated and killed. In Jones’s 
Nadir, lib. i. c. xi. there appears a Fethali Khan, whose history accords better with the 
allusion in the text, p. 242. Compare the Phatali Khan of Bell, vol. i„ and Fbaseb’ib 
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