[224] Chatzki's project is reproduced in his famous book _Rozprawa o Zydach_, "Inquiry Concerning the Jews" (edition of 1860), pp. 119-134. [225] The Jewish communities of Poland were burdened with enormous debts, representing loans made by them in the course of many years, to pay off their arrears in taxes, to meet extraordinary expenditures, and so on. The creditors of the Jews were the municipal magistracies, the Catholic monasteries, as well as private persons. The question of liquidating these debts cropped up time and again at the sessions of the Polish Diets during the latter half of the eighteenth century. [226] [In Polish, _Targowica_, a town in the Ukraina.] [227] [See p. 243, n. 1.] [228] [More exactly, _Kościuszko_, pronounced _Koshchushko_.] [229] [_Berek_, or _Berko_, popular Polish form of the Jewish name _Baer_.--Yoselovich, in Polish _Joselowicz_, son of Yosel, or Joseph.] [230] In the province of Zhmud [or Samogitia, corresponding practically to the present Government of Kovno.] [231] That the habits of the Shlakhta were but little changed by the revolution may be gauged from the fact that in 1794 the revolutionary Central Council passed a law ordering the sale of crown lands for the purpose of paying the national debt, but limiting this sale to persons of the Christian faith. [232] [See p. 85, n. 1.] [233] [In Polish, _Kock_, near Warsaw.] CHAPTER IX THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN RÉGIME 1. THE JEWISH POLICY OF CATHERINE II. (1772-1796) The quarantine which Russia, prior to Catherine II., had established for the "enemies of Christ," was broken through in 1772 by the first partition of Poland. At one stroke the number of Russian subjects was swelled by the huge Jewish masses of White Russia. The Russian Empire was augmented by a new province adjoining its central possessions, and together with the new region and its variegated population it acquired hundreds of thousands of subjects of the kind it had hitherto ruthlessly driven beyond its borders. What was to be done with the unwelcome heritage bequeathed by Poland? The primitive policy of an Elizabeth Petrovna might have dictated some barbarous measure, such as the wholesale expulsion of the Jews from the newly-acquired territory. But the statesmanlike intellect of a Catherine could not, during the formulation of the liberal "Instructions,"[234] admit such barbarism, which moreover would have been incompatible with the new pledges the Russian Government had found it necessary to give to the heterogeneous population of White Russia at the time of annexation. In the "Placard" issued on this occasion by Count Chernyshev, the first Governor-General of White Russia, all residents, "of whatever birth and calling," were "solemnly assured by the sacred name and word of the Empress," that their religious liberty as well as their personal rights, and the privileges attaching to property and estate, would remain inviolate.