March compelled Sir George Lewis to levy his new taxes not on a descending scale for three years, but for the ensuing year only. With a view to the popular vote to which Lord Palmerston was about to appeal, Sir George then surrendered 2d. of the tea duty, which brought it down to 1s. 5d. on the pound. But he made no adequate provision for the Persian war, or the war with China. His alteration of the tea duty of course rendered his surplus a myth, and his Budget, with an inflated expenditure, went forth, as Mr. Gladstone complained, with a deficiency of ways and means. In fact, on the eve of an appeal to the constituencies, a prudish Chancellor of the Exchequer “went to the country” with a profligate electioneering Budget. Mention has been already made of a “little war” that was being waged with Persia. It had sprung out of the irrepressible desire of the Shah to hold Herat, and from the traditional belief of the Foreign Office that when Herat was in Persian hands, “the key of India” was in the pockets of the Czar.[299] In 1851 Persia had promised that she would not meddle with Herat if the Afghans did not attempt to seize it. But the Governor of Candahar advanced on the coveted city, whose ruler appealed to Persia for protection. The Indian Government admitted that there was no danger to India in Persia responding to this appeal. The Foreign Office, however, suspended diplomatic relations with the Court of Teheran.[300] Persia then agreed to retire from Herat when the Afghans withdrew, and negotiations went on in a dilatory fashion till the Crimean War broke out, when the Czar urged Persia to resist and become his ally. The Shah’s Prime Minister held his Imperial master back, and Mr. Thomson, a typical representative of the Foreign Office in Persia, by way of further conciliating the friendly Premier, appointed as First Secretary of the British Legation, a disreputable person who had been dismissed from the Persian service, and whose family were among the most active enemies of the anti-Russian Minister. The Minister refused to receive this individual--Meerza Hashim by name. By way of compensating him Mr. Murray, who succeeded Mr. Thomson, appointed him British agent at Shiraz, a place where we had no right to have an agent at all, but where, by the courtesy of the Persian Government, we had been allowed to have one.[301] The Persian Premier then threatened to arrest Meerza Hashim. As a matter of fact, he arrested his wife, and maliciously insinuated in a despatch, when Mr. Murray demanded her release, that he had compromised himself with the lady. Murray accordingly struck his flag and demanded an apology, whereupon Persia issued a manifesto declaring that the Afghans were advancing on Herat, and threatening to seize that fortress. In July, 1856, a British force was ordered to proceed from Bombay to occupy the island of Karrack and the city of Bushire. By this time the Crimean War was over, and Persia could get no aid from her Russian ally.