Such a memorandum was subsequently prepared.  But it was not submitted to the Tzar.  For only a few months later the official attitude towards the Jewish question took a turn for the worse.  The Government decided to abandon its former view on the Jewish pogroms and to adopt, instead, the theory of Jewish “exploitation,” using it as a means of justifying not only the pogroms which had already been perpetrated upon the Jews but also the repressive measures which were being contemplated against them.  Under these circumstances, Ignatyev did not see his way clear to allow the memorandum in defence of Jewry to receive the attention of the Tzar.

It is not impossible that the pacifying portion of the imperial reply which had been given at the audience of May 11 was also prompted by the desire to appease the public opinion of Western Europe, for at that time European opinion still carried some weight with the bureaucratic circles of Russia.  Several days before the audience at Gatchina, [1] the English Parliament discussed the question of Jewish persecutions in Russia.  In the House of Commons the Jewish members, Baron Henry de Worms and Sir H.D.  Wolff, calling attention to the case of an English Jew who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, interpellated the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Charles Dilke, “whether Her Majesty’s Government have made any representations to the Government at St. Petersburg, with regard to the atrocious outrages committed on the Jewish population in Southern Russia,” Dilke replied that the English Government was not sure whether such a protest “would be likely to be efficacious.” [2]

[Footnote 1:  On May 16 and 19=May 4 and 7, according to the Russian Calendar.]

[Footnote 2:  The Russian original has been amended in a few places in accordance with the report of the parliamentary proceedings published in the Jewish Chronicle of May 20, 1881.]

A similar reply was given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Granville, to a joint deputation of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Board of Deputies, two leading Anglo-Jewish bodies, which waited upon him on May 13, [1] two days after the Gatchina audience.  After expressing his warm sympathy with the objects of the deputation, the Secretary pointed out the inexpediency of any interference on the part of England at a moment when the Russian Government itself was adopting measures against the pogroms, referring to “the cordial reception lately given by the emperor to a deputation of Jews”

[Footnote 1:  May 25, according to the European Calendar.  From the issue of the Jewish Chronicle of May 27, 1881, p. 12b, it would appear that the deputation was received on Tuesday, May 24.]