This brilliant prospect of becoming the tools of the nobles for the disposal of rural products and the sale of manorial alcohol had evidently little fascination for the Jews themselves. Alarmed by these aristocratic designs, they held a consultation, and even called a conference of delegates. The conference met in Ostrog (Volhynia) in the summer of 1798, and decided to collect a fund and send a deputation to St. Petersburg, to lay before the Tzar the needs and wishes of the Jews of the Southwest, whom the Government had entirely forgotten to ask how they themselves would like to have their affairs arranged. Unfortunately the Governor-General of the Southwest, Count Gudovich, "got wind" of these preparations. Far-sighted statesman that he was, he immediately suspected "that this collection [of money for the deputation] might merely serve as a cover for some wicked Jewish design." He accordingly confiscated the funds already secured, forbade all further collections, and hastened to report his achievement to St. Petersburg. To his astonishment, the overzealous Governor-General received the chilling reply, that the Tzar found nothing criminal in the desire of the Jews to send a deputation to him. At the same time he was instructed to return the confiscated money and not to interfere with the sending of the deputation (September, 1798). Whether the deputation actually proceeded to the capital, and what it achieved, is unknown. But the occurrence in itself bears witness to the fact that even in that unenlightened epoch and in the secluded Hasidic environment of Volhynia and Podolia, the Jews were not altogether insensible of the political and social upheavals which were taking place in Russia.