Dyerzhavin was born in one of the remote eastern provinces of Russia, and spent the greater part of his life in the Government offices of St. Petersburg. He had never come in contact with the Jewish population, until, in 1799, he was dispatched to the little town of Shklov in White Russia, to look into the case of the owner of the town, a retired general by the name of Zorich. The latter had been one of the favorites of Catherine, and lived the fast and extravagant life of a Russian country squire in the town which was his private property. His typically Russian devil-may-care conduct was not calculated to spare the large Jewish population of the town. Zorich evidently fancied that the Jews living on his land were just as much his serfs as were the peasants, and he handled them in the way serfs were dealt with in those days. He expelled several of them from the town, and seized their houses. Others he beat with his own hands, and still others he forced to supply him with drink free of charge. The Jews appealed to the Government against this attempt to turn them into serfs, and it was in response to their appeal that Emperor Paul dispatched Senator Dyerzhavin, with instructions to curb the violence of the boisterous squire. Dyerzhavin, who was imbued with the spirit of serfdom, could not but take a mild view of the high-handed methods of Zorich, and came to the conclusion that the Jews were partly to blame for the disorders that had taken place. The death of Zorich in 1800 put a stop to the case, but theoretically the Senate decided that, according to Russian law, the Jews, by virtue of their being members of the merchant and burgher class, could not be regarded as serfs even in the towns and settlements owned by squires.