There was even an attempt at diplomatic intervention.

During his stay in England, Nicholas I.was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank.

Yet the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the interests of the exchequer.

The fatal ukase was not officially repealed, but the Government did not insist on its execution.
In the meantime the "Jewish Committee" kept up a correspondence with the governors-general in regard to the ways and means of carrying into effect the third article of its program, the "assortment," or "classification" of the Jews.

The plan called for the division of all Russian Jews into two categories, into useful and useless ones.