All the military requests made by Admiral Alexeieff, after consulting with the senior officers in the Kuan-tung district, were carried out with great promptitude. My recommendations and orders were made in Port Arthur, and issued by despatch. In the autumn of 1903 I was thanked by him for acting on his recommendations so promptly. In view of the repeated assurances given me by Admiral Alexeieff that he was wholly opposed to Bezobrazoff’s schemes, that he was holding them back with all his strength, and that he was a firm advocate of a peaceful Russo-Japanese agreement, I left Port Arthur for St. Petersburg in July, 1903, fully believing that the avoidance of a rupture with Japan was a matter entirely within our control. The results of my visit to the Far East were embodied in a special report to the Emperor, submitted August 6, 1903, in which I expressed with absolute frankness the opinion that if we did not put an end to the uncertain state of affairs in Manchuria, and to the adventurous activity of Bezobrazoff in Korea, we must expect a rupture with Japan. Copies of this report were sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Finance, and met with their approval. By some means unknown to me, this report was given publicity, and on June 24, 1905, the newspaper _Razsvet_ printed an article, by a certain M. Roslavleff, entitled “Which is the Greater?” the object of which was to prove that I ought to be included amongst those responsible for the rupture with Japan, because, through fear of Bezobrazoff, I signed a paper drawn up in Port Arthur, which put the Ya-lu enterprise under the protection of Russian troops, and thus stopped the evacuation of Manchuria. This article has been reprinted by many Russian and foreign journals, and there has never been any refutation of the misstatements that it contains with regard to my alleged action in signing this imaginary memorandum. In view of the special publicity this effusion received, and of the gravity of the accusations levelled against me, I will give a few extracts from it. M. Roslavleff quotes from my report to the Emperor the following sentences and paragraphs: