The prisoners were kept in the citadel of Warsaw for three months, but were then released.
[Footnote 1: Pronounce, _Bozhe, tzosh Polske_, "O Lord, Thou that hast for so many ages guarded Poland with the shining shield of Thy protection!"-- the first words of the hymn.] In the meantime Marquis Vyelepolski, acting as mediator between the Russian Government and the Polish people, had prepared his plan of reforms as a means of warding off the mutiny.

Among these reforms, which aimed at the partial restoration of Polish autonomy and the improvement of the status of the peasantry, was included a law providing for the "legal equality of the Jews." Wielding considerable influence, first as director of the Polish Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction, and later as the head of the whole civil administration of the Kingdom, Vyelepolski was able to secure St.Petersburg's assent to his project.

On May 24, 1862, Alexander II.

signed an ukase revoking the suspensory decree of 180 1808, [1] which had entailed numerous disabilities for the Jews incompatible with the new tendencies in the political and agrarian life of the Kingdom.

This ukase conferred the following rights upon the Jews: [Footnote 1: See Vol.