Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 18.12.8

18.12.8

Seradj-ed-doulah abandoned by his troops, and deserted by his whole Court, resolved to retain some people at least about his person; and he ordered that whoever had any demand upon the treasury, should be immediately satisfied. Numbers immediately thronged into it, some for their arrears, and some for advances to help themselves out. Some others likewise, under a variety of pretences, crowded into it, and received as much as they pretended to; for orders had been given to reject no man; so that during the whole night the treasury was full of people, who took money on every pretence they could devise, and carried it home; but none remained with him notwithstanding that liberality; for he had mistaken the time when it was necessary, not only to abstain from acquiring gold and wealth, but also to spend that already hoarded up at home. He had never thought of being liberal, nor ever had entertained any thoughts about restraining either his tongue or hand from injuring and oppressing people; and now that the day of retribution was already at hand, the day when he was in his turn to suffer all kinds of miseries and all kinds of torments in his own person, he betook himself to a distribution of treasures. He ought to have remembered what the Poet has said: