irst time the real facts came to light. Truth
found its champion in the person of the aged statesman, Mordvinov, who
owned some estates near Velizh, and, being well-acquainted with the Jews
of the town, was roused to indignation by the false charges concocted
against them. In his capacity as president of the Department of Civil
and Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Council of State, Mordvinov, after
sifting the evidence carefully, succeeded in a number of sessions to
demolish completely the Babel tower of lies erected by Strakhov and
Khovanski and to adduce proofs that the governor-general, blinded by
anti-Jewish prejudice, had misled the Government by his communications.
The Department of Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs was convinced by the
arguments of Mordvinov and other champions of the truth, and handed down
a decision that the accused Jews be set at liberty and rewarded for
their innocent sufferings, and that the Christian women informers he
deported to Siberia.

The plenary meeting of the Council of State concurred in the decision of
the Department, rejecting only the clause providing for the reward of
the sufferers. The verdict of the Council of State was submitted to the
Tzar and received his endorsement on January 18, 1835. It read as
follows:

The Council of State, having carefully considered all the
circumstances of this complex and involved case, finds that the
depositions of the material female witnesses, Terentyeva, Maximova,
and Koslovska, containing as they do numerous contradictions and
absurdities and lacking all positive evidence and indubitable
conclusions, cannot be admitted as legal proof to convict the Jews
of the grave crimes imputed to them, and, therefore, renders the
following decision:

1. The Jews accused of having killed the soldier boy Yemelyanov and
of other similar deeds, which are implied in the Velizh trial, no
indictment whatsoever having been found against them, shall be freed
from further judgment and inquiry.

2. The material witnesses, the peasant woman Terentyeva, the soldier
woman Maximova, and the Shiakhta woman[1] Kozlovsta, having been
convicted of uttering libels, which they have not in the least been
able to corroborate, shall be exiled to Siberia for permanent
residence.

3. The peasant maid Yeremyeyeva, having posed among the common
people as a soothsayer, shall be turned over to a priest for
admonition.

[Footnote 1: i.e., a