289 be done by lowering the salaries of the officers and reducing the size of the military units. Finally, the Senate recommended that the quartering of troops in the districts, which was such a burden to the peasantry, should be discontinued and replaced by the garrisoning of the regiments in towns. Were these proposals adopted, “the reduced sum in the budget (tahel') (can) be filled up and the troops can be supported without shortage, and the poor peasants will receive the benefit and joy and will refrain from fleeing. The discussion about what fiscal measures had to be taken in order to secure the productivity of the peasantry for future state revenues continned in the Senate during 1726, as well. At the beginning of June, it was proposed that the position of provincial bursar should be eliminated, since: from the year 1719 there have been appointed in the gubernii and the provinces chief accountants for the supervision of tax collection and a bursar for the reception and disbursement of the bursary, but from the year 1724, instead of the earlier provincial taxes, the soul tax has been imposed, and for the collection of these moneys, alongside of the administration of the voevodas and chief accountants, special provincial commissaries have been appointed, who are themselves responsible for making account to the kamer-kollegiia. And thus there remains little of the former occupation for the chief accountant and the bursar. ” 267 268 An exception was made for the St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Siberian gubernii, since “the revenue and expenditure in these places is at present not slight.” Thus, in the opinion of the Senate, the new post of komissar ot zemli created in 1724 had made the provincial bursars superfluous. Soon after the Senate presented this proposal, these domestic problems were taken up by the Supreme Privy Council (Verkhovnyi tainyi sovet), which had been set up in February 1726. This body was composed of a number of people who had won influence in the military and in the central administration after the death of Peter I, namely Prince A. D. Menshikov, General Admiral F. M. Apraksin, Chancellor G. I. Golovkin, Senator Count P. A. Tolstoi, Senator Prince D. M. Golitsyn, and Vice Chancellor A. I. Österman. Shortly after the formation of the Supreme Privy Council, its membership was expanded by the addition of Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp.269 Ibid., 31—32. SIRIO, LV, 413. Concerning the founding of the Supreme Privy Council, see Hans Bagger, Ruslatids alliancepolitik efter freden i Nystad. En studie i det slesvigske restitutionssporgsmål indtil 1732 (Copenhagen, 1974), 199—210, and E. V. Anisimov, "Prichiny obrazovaniia verkhovnogo tainogo soveta (1726—1730 gg.),” in A. G. Man’kov et al., 1!) - Peterson 269
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