On the twenty-eighth of Elul, in the year 5468, there came the Cæsar, who is called the Tzar of Muscovy, by the name of Peter, the son of Alexis, with his whole suite, an immense, numberless host. Robbers and murderers from among his people fell upon us, without his knowledge, and it almost came to bloodshed. And if the Lord Almighty had not put it into the heart of the Tzar to enter our synagogue in his own person, blood would certainly have been shed. It was only with the help of God that the Tzar saved us, and took revenge for us, by giving orders that thirteen men from among them [the rioters] be immediately hanged, and the land became quiet. During the last years of his reign, Peter began to admit Jewish financial agents to his new capital, St. Petersburg. One of the most energetic financial agents at that time was the "court Jew" Lipman Levy, a banker from Courland, who attained to particular prominence under Peter's successors. Under the immediate successors of Peter the Great the "defensive" policy towards the Jews gradually became an "offensive" one. The magnates at the Russian court, who dominated Russia under the label of "The Supreme Secret Council," called attention to the unnecessary proximity of the Jewish colony in Smolensk to the center of the Empire. The district of Smolensk bordering on Poland harbored a group of White Russian Jews, who earned a livelihood by a trade profitable at that time, the lease of excise and customs duties. One of these big tax-farmers, a certain Borukh Leibov (son of Leib), even had the courage to build a synagogue for the few Jews of the village of Zverovich. This aroused the ire of the local Greek Orthodox priest, who in his _naïveté_ was convinced that the establishment of a synagogue would result in diverting his flock from the Church and converting it to Judaism. The inhabitants began to bombard St. Petersburg with their protests, the elders of the Holy Synod became alarmed, the specter of the "Judaizing heresy" once more flitted across their vision, and, as a result, Empress Catherine I. issued, in March, 1727, an ukase[211] through the Supreme Secret Council, that Borukh and his associates be removed from their office in connection with the excise and customs duties, and "be deported immediately from Russia beyond the border."