That was the man to whose feet the French Emperor Napoleon and the Tsar Alexander, King George III. and the greatest Governor-General of the East India Company, the Marquess Wellesley, sent special embassies; the man from whom they sought secret treaties, lavishing on his courtiers more than royal gifts. To arrest the march of the Afghan invader, who a few years before had reached Lahore on his way to set up again at Delhi the house of Timour, and in order to foil the secret embassy sent by Napoleon, who had resolved to give England its death-blow through India, a young Scotsman, Captain Malcolm, was deputed to Teheran in 1801, following up a native envoy who had been most successful just before. This soldier diplomatist, who was afterwards to help Henry Martyn to a very different success, 'bribed like a king,' and returned with two treaties, political and commercial, but still more with the knowledge which fitted him to write his classic history, and make his second ambassage. For England failed to carry out the first so far as to help the Shah against Russia, and from that hour Persia has seen province after province overwhelmed by the wave from the north. Taking alarm a second time, just before and after the Peace of Tilsit, both the Crown and the Company appointed plenipotentiaries to Teheran. It was Lord Minto's wise policy to protect our Indian empire 'by binding the Western Frontier States in a chain of friendly alliance.' Hence the Governor-General's four missions, to Sindh, to Lahore, to Cabul, and again to Persia under Sir John Malcolm. Sir Harford Jones appeared as ambassador from the Crown after Malcolm had left Teheran, and took advantage of a change in the political situation to secure the preliminary treaty of 1809, which renewed the pledge of its predecessor to assist the Shah with troops or a subsidy if any European forces should invade his territories. In a modified form this became the definitive treaty of March 14, 1812 (further altered in that of 1814), to arrange which Sir Gore Ouseley was sent out, superseding both Malcolm and Jones.[48] Sir Gore Ouseley became Henry Martyn's friend. Commended by Sir John Malcolm to his personal friends among the Persians, and officially encouraged by the British plenipotentiary, the Bengal chaplain seeking health had all the facilities secured to him that were possible to pursue the God-given mission of the apostle of Christ to the peoples of Persia and Arabia.