The brief reign of Paul I. (1796-1801) added nothing of moment to the Russian legislation concerning the Jews. The law imposing a double tax was confirmed, and also the other restrictions were left in force. The area of Jewish settlement was increased by the newly-acquired Government of Courland, on the outskirts of the Empire. In this Duchy, which was annexed in 1795, there were several thousand Jewish inhabitants, who had been "tolerated" as foreigners, after the German pattern, and had only partly succeeded in forming a communal organization. The question now arose as to the best way of collecting the taxes from the itinerant chapmen who formed the bulk of the Jewish population, and were enrolled neither among the rural nor the urban estates, and were not even affiliated with Jewish communities. The Russian Government solved this question in 1799, by placing the Jews of Courland in the same position as their coreligionists in the other western Governments, and by granting them the right of enrolling themselves among the mercantile or burgher estates, as well as establishing their own Kahals. In this case fiscal considerations were responsible for the organization of the Jewish masses in the dominion of the German barons. Having confined the Jewish population within the western pale, the Government could not very well hamper its freedom of transit within that pale, at least as far as moving from city to city was concerned. This elementary right of free transit was resorted to by many Jews of impoverished White Russia, who began to emigrate into the Little Russian provinces, particularly into the Government of Novgorod-Seversk, later the Government of Poltava, which were more prosperous, and less crowded with Jews. The Government became aware of this internal transmigration, and could not abstain from taking it under its fatherly protection. Merchants were allowed to move unhampered from White Russia into Little Russia. Burghers, however, were permitted to emigrate only on the conditions applying to all persons of the taxable estates--they had to obtain certificates of dismissal (December, 1796).