ersburg, a cry unfamiliar to Russian ears,--"Down
with the Tsar!" Those blood-stains in Nevski Prospect will be long in
effacing!

The long-looked-for Baltic fleet, commanded by Admiral Rojestvenski,
was detained at the outset of its voyage by an untoward incident,
having fired into a fleet of British fishermen, which was mistaken for
the enemy in disguise. After being acquitted by a court of inquiry,
the Admiral proceeded, his objective point now being changed from Port
Arthur to Vladivostock, the next most critical point.

On May 27-28th there occurred one of the most disastrous naval
engagements in the annals of war, in the Korean Straits, near Tsushima,
where Admiral Togo with sure instinct of the course which would be
taken, was lying in wait under the cover of darkness and fog.

Nineteen Russian vessels were destroyed, the Japanese ships sustaining
almost no injury. All that remained of the Russian fleet was
surrendered to Admiral Togo, and Rojestvenski, desperately wounded, and
all of his surviving officers, were prisoners of war in Tokio.

With this climax of Russian disaster the end had come. Although Russia
still doggedly refused to acknowledge defeat, and made feint of
preparation for reenforcements and future triumphs, the world saw that
there must be peace; and that the only existing obstacle was the
determination of a proud nation not to be placed in a humiliating
position.

The absolute neutrality of the United States enabled President
Roosevelt to intervene at this critical moment as no European sovereign
could have done. His proposal that there should be a meeting of envoys
for the discussion of some peaceable adjustment of their differences
was promptly accepted by both nations, and with the hostile armies
still facing each other in Manchuria, arrangements were made for the
Peace Conference to be held in the United States in August.

The envoys selected for this mission were M. de Witte and Baron Rosen,
Ambassador to the United States from Russia, on the one hand, and Baron
Komura, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Japan, and Kogaro Takahira,
Minister at Washington from that country, on the other. If the
appointment of M. de Witte had awakened expectation of a presentation
of the Russian cause from the view-point of a progressive leader, the
mistake was quickly discovered. M. de Witte, performing a duty
intrusted to him by his Imperial master, was quite a different person
from de Witte, the