ported to the O.C. Detachment, and I
reported the before-mentioned facts verbally to General Knox.

6. The conduct of the N.C.O. and men of my detachment on the journey was
very good, and no increase of sickness took place amongst them.--I have
the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,

(Signed) P.C. CORNISH-BOWDEN
(Second-Lieutenant).

Vladivostok, Siberia, _December_ 2, 1918.

I had already gained enough experience of revolutions to know that if I
did not press my point vigorously Avkzentieff and Co. were as dead as
mutton. I also knew that my countrymen have a rooted dread of
dictatorships, and that if Admiral Koltchak's assumption of power was
either connected with or promoted by the execution of his opponents
without trial, assistance or eventual recognition by the British
Government would be made almost impossible. My own agents had discovered
the place where the prisoners were detained, also that they were to be
quietly bayoneted in the night, as shooting would attract attention. I
was also certain that Koltchak knew nothing about this. The whole
business was in the hands of an Officers' Revenge Society, a body who
had sworn an oath to kill just the number of Bolshevik Revolutionaries
as there had been officers murdered by Trotsky's and Avkzentieff's
people. Both parties had similar combinations which left the marks of
their foul deeds on the streets every night.

The state of affairs was such that only by a dictatorship could the most
rudimentary order be maintained. I, a democrat, believing in government
of the people by the people, thought I saw in the dictator the one hope
of saving the remnants of Russian civilisation and culture. Words and
names have never frightened me. If circumstances force on me a problem
for solution, I never allow preconceived notions and ideas formed in the
abstract, without the experience of the actual then existing facts, to
warp my judgment in deciding the issue; and I am vain enough to believe
that, had the same situation presented itself to Englishmen generally,
nine out of ten would act as I did. I merely "carried on." The
traditions of our race and country did the rest.

Having, in my talk with the admiral and the report I made, accepted his
position of Supreme Governor, I did not mean that he should be left to
fight his way unaided against the enemies who surrounded him. In other
words, while outwardly remaining neutral, I constantly made
representations and gave