assified as "unimportant, if true." The truth is, however,
that they are both well known to have been utterly unfounded in fact. I
did not appoint Mr. Lecoffre, a British subject, to a financial post in
northern Persia. I found him in the Finance Department at Teheran (the
capital, which is in the so-called Russian sphere) when I arrived there
last May, and he had been occupying an important position there for
nearly two years, without the slightest objection ever having been
raised by the Russian Government. I proposed to transfer him to a
somewhat less important position, but one in which I thought he could
be of greater service.

As to the second ground or pretext, in effect, that I had caused to be
printed and circulated a Persian translation of my letter to the
_Times_, it was simply false. It was well known to be false--so well
known, in fact, that a newspaper in Teheran, the _Tamadun_
(_Civilization_) which did print it and circulate it, publicly admitted
the fact the minute they heard that I was charged by Russia with having
done so. So these two at best rather puerile pretexts upon which to
base an ultimatum from a powerful nation to a weaker one lacked even
the merit of truth.

This second ultimatum, despite all hypocritical attempts made to
justify it, fairly stunned the Persian people. Accustomed as they had
become in recent years to the high-handed and cynical actions of the
St. Petersburg cabinet, they had not looked for such a foul blow as
this. They had been realizing dimly that the peace of Europe was being
threatened by the open hostility of Germany and England over the
Moroccan incident, and that British foreign policy was apparently
leaving Russia absolutely free to work her will in Asia, so long, at
least, as Russia pretended to acknowledge the. Anglo-Russian _entente_
of 1907; but the Persian people had too much, far too much, confidence
in the sacredness of treaty stipulations and the solemnly pledged words
of the great Christian nations of the world to imagine that their own
whole national existence and liberty could be jeopardized overnight,
and on a pretext so shallow and farcical as to excite world-wide
ridicule. Their disillusionment came too late. The trap had been
unwittingly set by hands that made unexpected moves on the European
chessboard, and the Bear's paw had this time been skilful enough to
spring it at the proper moment.

The Persian statesmen and chieftains who formed the cabine