Note 19 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
It would be unfair to pass over in silence another story which is absolutely authenticated and which casts a doubt on Muravieff's plea of justification. He met the Russian minister to Hesse at Darmstadt soon afterwards and boasted he had had his way about Port Arthur in spite of the omnipotent Witte, and he added: "Things are not, however, going as I hoped they would. My intention was not to fortify Port Arthur, but only to hoist the Russian flag over it and leave a sentry in a sentry box to guard it. Nothing more." But Muravieff was one of those misers who grudge the truth to everybody. To a foreign diplomatist who hinted that he had not spoken his thought to the British government in the matter of Port Arthur he answered, "Perhaps not—but I gained a fine port for Russia thereby."