Note 1 — Chapter IV · THE EXILES.

According to M. Réclus, the first decree of banishment fell upon the insurrectionists of Uglitch, in 1591; in the days of the Tsar Boris Godunof, and for a century afterwards Siberia received scarcely any exiles but State prisoners. At the end of the seventeenth century, however, some of the vanquished Little Russians of the Ukraine were deported thither; and they were followed by the religious dissenters—the first accompanied by their families. The Streltzi were banished by Peter the Great to garrisons in the most distant parts of the empire; and after the reign of Peter, the intrigues of the palace were the cause of exile to some of the Court celebrities, such as Menchikoff, Dolgoruki, Biron, Munich, Tolstoï, and others, some of whom, however, were brought back when their friends came into favour. In 1758 began the deportation of Poles to Siberia, but their banishment in large numbers dates from the reign of Catherine II., with the confederates of Bar, and then with the companions of Kosciuzko. Nine hundred Poles, having served under Napoleon, were exiled to Siberia, and large numbers of the insurrectionists of 1830 followed. The exiles whose names awaken perhaps the most sympathy among the Russians were the Decembrists of 1826, who endeavoured to deprive the Emperor Nicholas of his throne; but of these, and political prisoners generally, I shall treat hereafter in a separate chapter.