9th December 1816, expressed himself as follows:—"All the measures of severity exhausted upon the Spirit-Wrestlers during the thirty years up to 1801, not only did not destroy this sect, but more and more multiplied the number of its adherents." And therefore he proposed more humane treatment of them. But, notwithstanding this desire of the Emperor, the persecutions did not cease. Under Nicholas i. they were particularly enforced, and by his command, in the years '40 and '50 the Spirit-Wrestlers were all banished from the government of Tauris, where they were formerly settled, to Transcaucasia, near the Turkish frontier. "The utility of this measure is evident," says a previous resolution of the Committee of Ministers of the 6th February 1826, "they [the Spirit-Wrestlers] being transported to the extreme borders of the Caucasus, and being always confronted by the hillsmen, must of necessity protect their property and families by force of arms," i.e. they would have to renounce their convictions. Moreover the place appointed for their settlement, the so-called Wet Hills, was one (situated in what is now the Ahalkalaky district of the Tiflis government) having a severe climate, standing 5000 feet above the sea-level, in which barley grows with difficulty, and where the crops are often destroyed by frost. Others of the Spirit-Wrestlers
