On the 6th of April, Mr. M’Neill, the British minister at the Persian Court, arrived in the camp of Mahomed Shah. He had left Teheran on the 10th of March; and, in spite of efforts made by the Persian ministers to arrest his progress at Ghorian, had pushed on with all possible rapidity to the Persian camp. It was urged that his presence could not fail to encourage the Heratees in their resistance. But the British minister pleaded his duty to his sovereign, and was not to be detained. He was coldly received in the Persian camp; but he demanded and obtained admittance to the Shah, and having exacted the customary formalities of reception, presented his credentials recently received from the Queen. The impression made upon the King, and subsequently upon the minister, was favourable to the British envoy, and soon his discreet and conciliatory bearing smoothed down the irritation which had been engendered by his advance. But the Russian minister, Count Simonich, was also on his way from Teheran; and Mr. M’Neill felt that the approach of this man might be fatal to his success.[173] On the 13th of April, Mr. M’Neill had an audience of the Persian monarch, in the course of which he stated that the proceedings of Persia in Afghanistan were an obvious violation of the treaty between Great Britain and the former state; and that the British Government would be justified, therefore, in declaring it to be at an end, and in taking active measures to compel the withdrawal of the Persian army from Herat. The audience lasted two hours. The Shah solemnly protested that he had never meditated anything injurious to the interests of Great Britain; and the minister, with still stronger emphasis, repeated the declaration. At a subsequent interview, the Shah consented to accept the mediation of the British mission; and on the 16th of April, the Persian soldiers proclaimed from the trenches that Mahomed Shah had determined to send Shere Mahomed Khan into Herat, accompanied by the British minister. But it was not Mr. M’Neill, but an inferior officer of the embassy, who was about to present himself on the morrow, in the character of a mediator, beneath the walls of the beleagured city.