In his "Principles of the Russian Governmental Law" Professor Gradovsky says: "In the reign of Peter the Great there were no general regulations concerning the Jews." Measures against the Jews date from the reign of Catherine the First. During the reign of Catherine the Second, little was added to the existing array of limitations. In the districts in which the first Partition of Poland found them, the Jews at that time enjoyed almost all the rights of the native Russian citizen. Although the Empress recognized the "Pale of Settlement" created in the reign of Peter the Second, she, nevertheless, stretched its boundaries to include not only Little Russia but also the Vice-Royalty of Ekaterinoslav and the province of Taurida, wherein the Jews were granted all rights of citizenship. In the "Regulations Concerning the Jews" published in 1804, in the reign of Alexander the First, the principle of equal civil rights for this nation is brought out in Article 42. "All the Jews in Russia," says this article, "whether residents or new settlers or foreigners coming to transact business are free and are to be under the protection of the law on a par with other Russian subjects." In commenting upon this article, Professor Gradovsky writes that this is clearly an attempt to fuse the Jewish nation with the rest of the Russian population by giving the former definite civil rights. Only during the last year of the reign of Alexander the First were some measures adopted whereby the "Pale of Settlement" was narrowed down because of a certain sect of "Sabbathists," closely related to Judaism, which had greatly increased in numbers, particularly in the provinces of Voronezh, Samara, Tula, and others. According to the "Regulations Concerning the Jews" of 1835, enacted in the reign of Nicholas the First, the Jews retained the right to own all kinds of real estate, with the exception of inhabited estates and to deal in all kinds of merchandise on the same basis as the other citizens,--of course, only within the "Pale."