At Tobolsk in 1710 Peter the Great established the capital of his reorganized province of Siberia. Prince Gagarin, whom he appointed its first governor, found here a systemless extortion unworthy of an efficient statesman. With the thoroughness of genius he built up in the unhappy province a regular organization of rascality. His pickets patrolled the roads into Russia, to prevent the escape of those who might carry the tale of his oppression. He arranged with high officials at Court that any petitioners who evaded this frontier net should be handed over to an appropriate committee. Thus fortified, he began collections of as much as could be wrung from his luckless subjects. Every traveler paid Gagarin’s tariff, every farmer sent him presents of stock, every trapper forwarded the best of his catch. The fur-trader’s donations and the merchants’ loans were assisted into Gagarin’s warehouses by thumbscrew and thonged knout. While these things passed in Tobolsk there came periodically to Petersburg delegations of outwardly contented citizens attesting the wisdom of their governor. They brought to the Czar and the Grand Dukes, in addition to the punctiliously rendered tax yassak, gifts of especially fine furs. Such was the completeness of Gagarin’s control that not an echo of the true state of affairs reached the ears of the astute Peter. At length, in 1719, Nesterov, the Minister of Finance, was privately approached by some Tobolsk merchants and was supplied with evidence sufficient to hang half the officials in Siberia. In a dramatic presentation the Minister furnished this to the Imperial Senate, showing so bad a case that Gagarin’s own agents in the ducal circle rose up against him. The Czar sent Licharev, a major of the Guard, to Siberia, to proclaim in every town and hamlet that Gagarin was a criminal in the eyes of the Emperor. As this messenger approached Tobolsk, official after official came out to turn state’s evidence, trying to assure his personal safety. The highways to Russia were guarded by Peter’s own troops, with orders to seize all outgoing travelers who might be transporting Gagarin’s accumulated spoil, which with commendable prudence the Czar had allocated to himself. When Peter was in England he had remarked casually to an acquaintance, “In my realm I have only two lawyers, and one of these I intend to hang as soon as I get back.” It was particularly unfortunate for this ex-governor that the remainder of the legal profession did not feel himself called upon to explain to Peter the Gagarin campaign contributions. No one ever needed an attorney more. He was under trial before an imperial judge who did not know a technicality from a tort, and whose preliminary procedure was to order a reliable gallows.