Meanwhile Sheil had been reporting on September 25th: 'The disciples of Bâb have barricaded a portion of that town, from which they cannot be expelled without a greater loss of life than the assailants seem willing to encounter.'[10] And he wrote on October 25th: 'Contrary to all rational expectation the small portion of Zenjan occupied by the Bâbees continues to set at defiance the efforts of the Shah's troops to expel that sect from the City.' In the same dispatch he stated that 'General Sir Henry Bethune who visited the scene of operations, expressed a conviction that three hours with ordinary troops would finish the affair...'[11] Bethune was the man who had helped Muḥammad [_Sh_]áh to his throne. Sheil seems to have become wearied of reporting on Zanján, for on November 23rd he wrote: 'I continue unable to make any variation in my reports relative to Zenjan--The same feeble ineffectual attempts at assault, the same repulses still mark the progress of the siege.' Then he made the extraordinary assertion that it had been affirmed that the defenders of Zanján were not Bábís at all, that they had been heard to 'proclaim from the walls in hearing of the troops, the creed that "there is no God but God, and Mahomed is his prophet."' Those men were fighting, it was said, because of the enormities perpetrated by the troops. Even more extraordinary is this fantastic and incredibly false statement in that same dispatch of November 23rd: 'Moolla Mahomed Ali, their chief, has the reputation of having proclaimed himself to be the true Bâb, and his predecessor to have been an impostor.'[12] On December 16th Sheil wrote to Palmerston: 'Her Majesty's Consul at Tabreez having informed me that great atrocities are committed at Zenjan by the soldiery particularly by their shocking treatment of such women as have been captured, I brought the circumstances to the knowledge of the Persian Minister--The Ameer-i.Nizam thanked me for the information, and said he would take immediate steps for preventing such barbarous proceedings, which are entirely opposed to his sentiments and feelings--' '... the mode in which my communication was received by the Ameer. i. Nizam shows an improvement in his tone, and in the temper with which he listens to suggestions of the above nature.'[13] On December 24th, Sheil reported to Palmerston: 'This protracted siege, if siege it can be called, is inexplicable--An English gentleman who lately passed through Zenjan informed me a few days ago that the portion of the town occupied by the Bâbees is confined to three or four houses, and that their numbers are utterly insignificant--They have adopted a mode of defence which seems to exceed the military skill of the Persian commanders--The entire of the space included within these houses is mined or excavated and connected by passages. Here the Bâbees live in safety from the shot and shells of the assailants, who evidently have no predilection for underground warfare.'[14]