[* Gholam Yaheea Khan was the maternal uncle of Shurf-od Dowlah, who was, afterwards, some time minister under Mahommed Allee Shah.]

Having given these orders, the Resident proceeded to the palace, attended by Captain Paton, the first Assistant, and Dr. Stevenson, the Residency Surgeon.  They found the King lying dead upon his bed, but his body was still warm, and Dr. Stevenson opened a vein in one arm.  Blood flowed freely from it, but no other sign of life could be discovered.  His features were placid and betrayed no sign of his having suffered any pain; and the servants in attendance declared that the only sign of suffering they had heard or seen was a slight shriek, to which the King gave utterance before he expired; that after that shriek he neither moved, spoke, nor showed any sign whatever of life.  His Majesty had been unwell for three weeks, but no one had any apprehension of danger from his symptoms.  He had called for some sherbet a short time before his death, and it was given to him by Dhuneea, the eldest of the two sisters.

The Resident took with him a guard of sipahees from his escort, and Captain Paton distributed them as double sentries at the inner doors of the palace, and outside the chief buildings and store-rooms, with orders to allow no one but the ministers and treasurers to pass.  Captain Madness had placed one sentry before at each of these places, and he now added a second, making a party of four sipahees at each post.  Captain Paton at the same time, in conjunction with the officers of the Court, placed seals on all the jewels and other valuables belonging to the King and his establishments; and as the night was very dark, placed torch-bearers at all places where they appeared to be required.

Having made these arrangements the Resident returned with Dr. Stevenson to the Residency, leaving Captain Paton at the palace; and wrote to the Brigadier to request that he would send off the five companies in advance to the palace direct, and bring down all his disposable troops, including artillery, to the city.  The distance from the palace to the cantonments, round by the old stone bridge, was about four miles and half.  The iron bridge, which shortens the distance by a mile and half, had not then been thrown over the Goomtee river, which flows between them.  The Resident then had drawn up, for the consent of the new king, a Persian paper, declaring that he was prepared to sign any new treaty for the better government of the country that the British Government might think proper to propose to him.

It was now one o’clock in the morning of the 8th of July, and Captain Shakespear, attended by the Meer Moonshee, Iltufat Hoseyn, and the Durbar Wakeel, proceeded to the house of the new sovereign, Nuseer-od Dowlah, who then resided where the present King now resides, a distance of about a mile from the Residency.  The visit was altogether unexpected; and, as the new sovereign had been for some time ill, some delay took