The Empress Catherine I.
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Catherine I. conducted herself with great gentleness and prudence in the administration of the government. She reduced the annual capitation tax; recalled the greater part of those whom Peter had exiled to Siberia; caused every gallows to be taken down and all instruments of torture destroyed ; paid the troops their arrears; and restored to the Cossacks their privileges and immunities of which they had been deprived during the late reign. She concluded a treaty of alliance with the German emperor, by which it was stipulated that, in case of attack from an enemy, either party should assist the other with a force of thirty thousand men, and should each guaranty the possessions of the other. In her brief reign the boundaries of the empire were extended in the Trans-Caucasus; Catherine also founded the Academy of Sciences. Her indulgence in the use of intoxicating liquors produced a disease of which she died on the 17th of May, 1727, at the age of forty-one, having reigned only about two years.
see more - Historic Summary - Peter the Great to Nicholas