The empire of Persia continued to be divided between Hussein and the usurper Mahmoud. The first of these thought to find a protector in the czar, and the other dreaded him as an avenger, who was come to snatch the fruits of his rebellion out of his hands. Mahmoud exerted all his endeavours to stir up the Ottoman Porte against Peter, and for this purpose sent an embassy to Constantinople, while the princes of Daghestan, who were under the protection of the grand seignior, and had been stript of their territories by the victorious army of Peter, cried aloud for vengeance. The divan was now alarmed for the safety of Georgia, which the Turks reckon in the number of their dominions. The grand seignior was on the point of declaring war against the czar, but was prevented by the courts of Vienna and Paris. The emperor of Germany at the same time declared, that if Russia should be attacked by the Turks, he must be obliged to defend it. The marquis de Bonac, the French ambassador at Constantinople, made a dextrous use of the menaces of the imperial court, and at the same time insinuated, that it was contrary to the true interest of the Turkish empire, to suffer a rebel and an usurper to set the example of dethroning sovereigns, and that the czar had done no more than what the grand seignior himself ought to have done. During these delicate negotiations, Mir Mahmoud was advanced to the gates of Derbent, and had laid waste all the neighbouring country in order to cut off all means of subsistence from the Russian army. That part of ancient Hyrcania, now called Ghilan, was reduced to a desert, and the inhabitants threw themselves under the protection of the Russians, whom they looked upon as their deliverers. In this they followed the example of the sophi himself. That unfortunate prince sent a formal embassy to Peter the Great, to request his assistance; but the ambassador was hardly departed, when the rebel, Mir Mahmoud, seized on Ispahan and the person of his master. Thamaseb, the son of the dethroned sophi, who was taken prisoner, found means to escape out of the tyrant's hands, and got together a body of troops, with which he gave the usurper battle. He seconded his father's entreaties to Peter the Great for his protection, and sent to the ambassador the same instructions which Shah Hussein had given him.