The resolution condemning the ritual murder charges was published as a paid advertisement in 35 British journals; it appeared twice in the most important newspapers. On April 30, a delegation elected by the Board met with the foreign secretary Lord Palmerston, who called the blood libel a "calumny" and promised that "the influence of the British government should be exerted to put a stop to [the] atrocities." In his dispatch of May 5, the foreign secretary told Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador in Constantinople, to communicate the material on the Rhodes affair to the Ottoman government "officially and in writing" and to "request… an immediate and strict inquiry to be made… especially into the allegation that these atrocities were committed at the instigation of the Christians and the European consuls." A consensus formed within the European diplomatic community in Constantinople that the persecution of the accused Jews had to be stopped. This opinion was held not only by Lord Ponsonby, but also by von Stürmer, whose correspondence revealed that he was not at all convinced of the innocence of the Jews; by the French ambassador Edouard Pontois, whose government stood by the French consuls who supported blood libels in Rhodes and Damascus; and by the Prussian ambassador Hans von Königsmark. Consequently, the way was open for Lord Ponsonby, by far the most powerful diplomat in Constantinople, to intervene unopposed on behalf the Jews of Rhodes. In response to Yusuf Pasha's request, the Ottoman government sent its instructions to Rhodes, where they arrived at the end of April. The government would set up an official investigatory commission before which representatives of the Jewish and Greek communities were ordered to present their evidence. In mid-May, the government sent orders to release the six remaining Jewish prisoners. On May 21, they were ceremoniously called before the court ("shura") and freed under the guarantees of the elders of the Jewish community. The Christians responded to these actions of the central government with a fresh wave of fury against the Jews so that in late May violence was in the air. The Jews described many cases in which they were assaulted or beaten by the Greeks, and the sons of the British and the Greek consuls were among those who beat up a number of Jews. When the Jews complained to the governor, he ordered the complainants subjected to four to five hundred blows of the bastinado. The qadi disassociated himself from the actions of the governor, who declared that he had acted upon the demands of the consuls.