[Footnote H: Ḥájí Ibráhím [_Kh_]án (the I`timádu'd-Dawlih).] Indeed, high hopes centred on what the Emperor of France would do for Írán, only to be dashed by Bonaparte's change of policy; when he met Tsar Alexander I at Tilsit (1807) he did not remember any of his promises. And so General Gardanne was ignominiously ousted from Ṭihrán, and Sir Harford Jones and Sir John Malcolm were left at peace, to glower at each other, much to the amusement and also surprise and embarrassment of the Persian ministers. But as Napoleon's star waned, so did the interest of the British in Persian affairs. The wars with Russia went on until the Persians acknowledged defeat in the Treaty of Gulistán of 1813. Amidst abysmal ignorance, nepotism and malpractice which abounded in the realm, there stood two men in particular, untouched by corruption, who were fully aware of the needs of their country: Prince `Abbás Mírzá, the heir to the throne, and his vizier, Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim, Qá'im-Maqám-i-Faráhání. But their attempts at reform could not obtain the success they deserved because of the obscurantism surrounding the person of the sovereign. It was this Crown Prince who sent the first group of Iranian students to Britain to learn the crafts of the West. Their story, which does no credit to the government in London, is preserved in a number of documents lodged in the Public Record Office. Incidentally, one of these men, a student of medicine, was named Mírzá Ḥájí Bábá, the eponym of the chief character of James Morier's well-known satire. Prince `Abbás Mírzá, worsted in the field by the Russians, now tried to provide his country with a modern army and engaged British instructors. As in the past, Ṭihrán gave him little help. Yet he was under constant pressure to resume hostilities. The divines, particularly, were urging it.[I] Yet Russia had no desire to fight; nor had Fatḥ-`Alí [_Sh_]áh: war was too expensive. Prince Menchikov arrived from St. Petersburg (the present-day Leningrad) not to dictate but to negotiate. But the demands of those who sought war--the clerics and the powerful court faction of Alláh-Yár [_Kh_]án[J]--proved irresistible; Menchikov returned to St. Petersburg. [Footnote I: This incident is referred to by Bahá'u'lláh in His Tablet to Náṣiri'd-Dín [_Sh_]áh.] [Footnote J: The Áṣafu'd-Dawlih, who later rose in rebellion against the central government during the reign of Náṣiri'd-Dín [_Sh_]áh.] In the war that soon followed the Persians were soundly beaten and Russian forces surged forward to occupy the city of Tabríz. The first to abandon the field was a group of clerics, who, with raised standards, had accompanied the army. By the Treaty of Turkuman[_ch_]áy (1828), onerous and humiliating in the extreme, Írán was excluded from the Caucasus. In addition to the payment of heavy indemnities, she lost her rights in the Caspian Sea and the frontier between Russia and Írán was fixed on the river Aras.