[Footnote 96: Hertslet, iv. pp. 2459-2463.] The proposals of the Memorandum were at once sent to the British, French, and Italian Governments for their assent. The two last immediately gave it. After a brief delay the Disraeli Ministry sent a decisive refusal and made no alternative proposal, though one of its members, Sir Stafford Northcote, is known to have formulated a scheme[97]. The Cabinet took a still more serious step: on May 24, it ordered the British fleet in the Mediterranean to steam to Besika Bay, near the entrance to the Dardanelles--the very position it had taken before the Crimean War[98]. It is needless to say that this act not only broke up the "European Concert," but ended all hopes of compelling Turkey at once to grant the much-needed reforms. That compulsion would have been irresistible had the British fleet joined the Powers in preventing the landing of troops from Asia Minor in the Balkan Peninsula. As it was, the Turks could draw those reinforcements without hindrance. [Footnote 97: _Sir Stafford Northcote, Earl of Iddesleigh_, by Andrew Lang, vol. ii. p. 181.] [Footnote 98: Our ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Henry Elliott, asked (May 9) that a squadron should be sent there to reassure the British subjects in Turkey; but as the fleet was not ordered to proceed thither until after a long interval, and was kept there in great strength and for many months, it is fair to assume that the aim of our Government was to encourage Turkey.] The Berlin Memorandum was, of course, not presented to Turkey, and partly owing to the rapid changes which then took place at Constantinople. To these we must now advert.