we may believe his
historian, who affirms that he never afterward knew happiness nor
desired that others should enjoy it. All his future actions were deeds
of horror, except the contest which he carried on against the Turks for
three years; and even in it he displayed none of that energy and heroic
spirit which marked his first wars with that nation.

The Persian army had made unsuccessful efforts to reduce the cities of
Basra, of Bagdad, and of Mussul. Nadir marched early in the succeeding
year to meet a large Turkish force which had advanced to near Erivan;
and we are told that he desired to encounter his enemies in battle on
the same plain where he had ten years before acquired such renown; but
their general, subdued by his own fears, fled and was massacred by his
soldiers; who, thrown into confusion at this event, were easily routed
by the Persians. This was the last victory of Nadir, and it was gained
merely by the terror of his name. Sensible of his own condition he
hastened to make peace. His pretensions regarding the establishment of a
fifth sect among orthodox Mahometans and the erection of a fifth pillar
in the Mosque of Mecca were abandoned. It was agreed that prisoners on
both sides should be released; that Persian pilgrims going to the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina should be protected; and that the whole of
the provinces of Irak and Azerbaijan should remain with Persia, except
an inconsiderable territory that had belonged to the Turkish government
in the time of Shah Ismail, the first of the Suffavean kings.

The conduct of Nadir to his own subjects during the last five years of
his reign had been described, even by a partial historian, as exceeding
in barbarity all that has been recorded of the most bloody tyrants. The
acquisition of the wealth of India had at first filled the mind of this
monarch with the most generous and patriotic feelings. He had proclaimed
that no taxes should be collected from Persia for three years. But the
possession of riches had soon its usual effect of creating a desire for
more; and while the vast treasures he had acquired were hoarded at the
fort of Kelat, which, with all the fears of a despot, he continually
labored to render inaccessible, he not only paid his armies, but added
to his golden heaps, from the arrears of remitted revenue, which he
extorted with the most inflexible rigor.

Nadir knew that the attack which he had made upon the religion of his
country had rende