To this the British Government replied:--"The witness's statement that the _Formosa_ arrived at Cardiff about the middle of December is incorrect. She was at Belfast from the 16th November to the 30th December, 1915, and did not arrive at Cardiff till the 2nd January, 1916. His statement that she left Cardiff in the night of the 1st and 2nd January is therefore also incorrect. It is, moreover, contradicted by the witness cited by the German Government in Annex 14, who states that the _Formosa_ was still at Cardiff on the 7th January. She actually left Cardiff for the Mediterranean on the 13th January with no passengers on board." It was on the strength of such trumped-up evidence as this that Germany decided to commit the crowning inhumanity of sinking hospital ships. In all probability, she was judging others by her own standards, and, knowing that in Britain's position she would not have hesitated to misuse hospital ships, she came to the conclusion that the British Government was doing so. Her unfounded charges were denied. In a despatch dated 5th October, 1917, Mr. Balfour stated:--"His Majesty's Government have already issued the most categorical denial of the assertions of the German Government that British hospital ships have ever been used except in accordance with the provisions of the Hague Convention." However, Germany was not to be deterred from her new path of atrocious crime, and so we find 75 men murdered through the sinking of the _Donegal_ and the hospital ship _Lanfranc_, 15 of the victims being Germans. The s.s. _Addah_ left America, homeward bound, on the 1st June, 1917. All went well until the 15th June, when a loud explosion was heard on the port side, and the ship began to settle down very quickly. The wireless was put out of action, and the master gave the order to abandon ship, which was carried out with the two boats. Ten minutes later the chief officer saw the periscope of a submarine, and then her hull, about a point on the starboard bow. From this position the submarine fired several shots, hitting the vessel seven times. She then came alongside the chief officer's boat, which was entered by five Germans. They boarded the steamer and returned with some stores and the ensign. After they had been rowed back to the submarine, the Germans told the chief officer's boat to shove off.