The first reply to the letters of the Anti-Slavery Society, from the Foreign Office, was in December, 1909, when it was stated that the Foreign Office had the subject under consideration. In July, 1910, a British Consul, Mr. Roger Casement, well known for his investigations into the Congo atrocities, was instructed to proceed to the Putumayo, his _locus standi_ being secured on the grounds that a number of British subjects, coloured men of Barbadoes, had been employed by Arana and the Peruvian agents of the company as slave-drivers. The securing of Mr. Casement for the work was due to the endeavour of the Anti-Slavery Society. The directors of the company, aroused at length by public opinion, or the representations of the Foreign Office, sent out a commission of inquiry at the same time.[16] Both the consul and the company's Commission faithfully carried out their task, and Mr. Casement handed in his report to Sir Edward Grey in January, 1911. The conclusions reached were terrible and damning. The worst accounts were confirmed in the words of Consul Casement: "The condition of things fully warrants the worst charges brought against the agents of the Peruvian Amazon Company and its methods on the Putumayo."[17] The great delay in publishing this report, which was only laid before Parliament in July, 1912, a year after being made, caused some protest by the Press. The Foreign Office had withheld it out of a desire to afford the Peruvian Government an opportunity of taking action to end the abuses, but, as this was not done, the report was made public as a means of arousing public opinion. The press of the whole civilised world then took the matter up.