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existing, most extraordinary, and peculiar circumstances.
For these evils His Majesty the Emperor holds the full and
most efficacious remedy in his own most gracious heart and
most powerful hands, under the blessing of Almighty God,
which would surely rest upon him in the prosecution of
such an unspeakably benign object.

"Will His Majesty deign to hear my most humble and most
earnest petition, and graciously put this remedy into
application?

"I beseech indulgent consideration while, confiding in the
nobleness of His Majesty's mind, and in the high wisdom of
His Majesty's Ministers, I proceed to describe it.

"It consists primarily in nothing more than the full and
real accordance to Israelites of the boon which His
Majesty's Ministers have informed me has been already
designed for them by the Imperial Government--videlicit,
"Equal rights with all other subjects of the empire." This
great favour bestowed by His Majesty publicly,
immediately, and without reserve would, I am deeply
persuaded, produce the most beneficial results. It would
cancel at once the heavy despondency produced by the
degradation of ages; it would call forth the ardent
gratitude which I assure your Excellency abounds in the
hearts of my brethren, and it would present to His
Majesty's other subjects, and to the world at large, a
most distinguished proof of His Majesty's paternal mercy,
wisdom, condescension, and high magnanimity.

"I would not argue that this favour, if it had been
granted without limit at other times, and under other
circumstances, would have been productive of the same
advantages. I would only humbly urge that now at this
moment, when the minds of my brethren and of other men
have been so powerfully drawn to observe His Majesty's
attention to their condition, such a measure must be
followed by most happy consequences.

"Entering with the deepest respect into the details of
this subject, I would most earnestly solicit and
supplicate--

"_1st._ That my brethren should enjoy without reserve the
fullest and completest right of settling at their own
choice in any part of the Russian territory comprised
within seventeen governments or provinces, a surface
occupying 17,000 square miles, and that to this end His
Majesty the Emperor would be most graciously pleased to
cancel all laws and customs which prevent them from
settling in an