ef of
reputation, at the head of a body of three thousand men, levying large
contributions on the inhabitants of Khorasan.

His uncle, alarmed at his increasing power, sought his friendship. He
addressed a kind letter to him, and proposed that he should enter the
service of Shah Tamasp, and aid that Prince in expelling the Afghans
from Persia. Nadir pretended to listen to this overture, and earnestly
desired that the King should grant him a pardon for his past offences.
This was easily obtained; and he went to Khelat to receive it. He
appears to have always deemed the Governor of that place as the chief
obstacle to his rise; and at this moment he laid a plan to destroy him
and to seize his fortress. He completely succeeded in both; and, after
having slain his uncle with his own hand, he proceeded to employ the
means he had acquired by this crime in overthrowing the Afghan ruler of
Khorasan. This popular attack upon the enemies of his country enabled
him to obtain a second pardon from Shah Tamasp, whose service he
entered, and to whose cause he brought a great accession of strength and
reputation.

Shah Tamasp early entertained the greatest jealousy of Nadir: and upon
his disobeying a mandate he had sent him to return from an expedition on
which he was engaged, the weak monarch ventured to proclaim him a rebel
and a traitor. The indignant chief, the moment he heard of these
proceedings, marched against the court, which he soon compelled to
submit on the terms he chose to dictate. From the occurrence of this
open rupture we may date the annihilation of the little power Tamasp had
ever enjoyed. Nadir continued to treat him with respect till he deemed
the time mature for his usurpation of the throne; but we discover that,
as early as his first expedition into Khorasan, he began to prepare the
minds of his countrymen for his future elevation.

Like Ardisheer, the founder of the Sassanian race of Persian kings, he
had his visions of future grandeur. He saw, we are told, in one of
these, a water-fowl and a white fish with four horns; he dreamt that he
shot the bird; and, after all his attendants had failed in their
attempts to seize the extraordinary fish, he stretched out his hand and
caught it with the greatest ease. The simple fact of his dreaming of a
bird and a fish, he was informed by flattering astrologers, was a
certain presage of his attaining imperial power; and his historian has
had a less difficult task in disco