After the failure of that scheme, which took him to Cairo, he received, through Leopold Greenberg, an offer (August 1903) from the British government to facilitate a large Jewish settlement, with autonomous government and under British suzerainty, in British East Africa. At the same time, the Zionist movement was threatened by the Russian government. Accordingly, Herzl visited St. Petersburg and was received by Sergei Witte, then finance minister, and Viacheslav Plehve, minister of the interior, the latter placing on record the attitude of his government toward the Zionist movement. On that occasion Herzl submitted proposals for the amelioration of the Jewish position in Russia. He published the Russian statement, and brought the British offer, commonly known as the "Uganda Project", before the Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1903), carrying the majority (295:178, 98 abstentions) on the question of investigating this offer, after the Russian delegation stormed out. In 1905 the 6th Zionist Congress, after investigations, decided to decline the British offer and firmly committed itself to a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A "Heimstatte"—a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine secured by public law.