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SCHAH ABAS.

Ir is impossible in the following short and simple notice to give any just idea of the long and brilliant reign of this distinguished prince.

ABAS, the third son of Khodabendeh, ascended the throne of Persia in 1585, immediately after, the death of his brother, Schah Ismaël. He was, at that epoch, Viceroy of Herat, in Khoraçan, and engaged in a dispute with the Uzbeks, who had possessed themselves of that province. He soon succeeded in expelling them; and pushed his conquests so far towards India, that he took, among his titles, that of Padschah Sind, (King of Sind). He possessed himself also of sundry other provinces dependant upon the Mogul empire, such as Kaboul, Quendahâr, &c. His arms were less victorious against the Turks; for while he was occupied on the borders of India, in 1618, they made a descent into Mazenderan, but were at length repulsed. Abas reconquered not only the Mazenderan and Chyrvan, but drove the enemy beyond Van and Teflys, and took Bagdat and Bassorah. Armenia was ravaged, and 30,000 families transported into Mazenderan, a country that, until that period, had been a desert.

In depopulating Armenia, from whence he drew the inhabitants to the very centre of his dominions, Abas had a double motive. The Turks, with whom he was frequently at war, never failed falling upon Armenia,

where they found ample subsistence. The depopulation of this province was, therefore, prejudicial to them in the extreme. He also well knew, that the principal and original source of wealth, and consequently of the prosperity of a great empire, was commerce; for which reason he endeavoured to naturalize, among the Persians, a nation, in fact, inconsiderable, but justly celebrated throughout Asia, by its skill in commercial operations, and by the immense relations it maintained with the different parts of the East, however distant.

In 1622, with the assistance of the English, with whom he had entered into an alliance, he took Ormus from the Portuguese: and, after a glorious reign of forty-five years, Schah Abas died at Zazoayn, in 1629. In the Imperial Library, at Paris, there is a history of this monarch, written in Persian, in one large volume, folio, which is extremely curious. He was the first who made Ispahan the capital of Persia.

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