The Baltic governorates, or the Baltic provinces, was a collective name for the administrative subunits of the then Russian Empire (1721–1917) in what is now Estonia and Latvia. The governorates were set up on territories of the previous Swedish Estonia and Swedish Livonia (both in 1721), and the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (in 1795). History The Treaty of Vilnius of 1561 included the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti by which the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus guaranteed the Livonian estates several privileges, including religious freedom with respect to the Augsburg Confession, the Indigenat (), and continuation of the traditional German jurisdiction and administration. The terms regarding religious freedom forbade any regulation of the traditional Protestant order by religious or secular authorities, and ruled that cases of disagreements be judged only by Protestant scholars. When in 1710 Estonia and Livonia capitulated to Russia during the Great Northern War, the capitulations explicitly referred to the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti, with the respective references being confirmed in the Treaty of Nystad (1721). The dominions of Swedish Estonia (in what is now northern Estonia) and Swedish Livonia (in what is now southern Estonia and northern Latvia) became the governorates of Reval and Riga, when they were conquered by Russia during the Great Northern War, and then ceded by Sweden in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Notably, both Reval Governorate and Riga Governorate were each at the time subdivided into one province only: the province of Estonia and the province of Livonia, respectively. In the period of the so-called Regency, 1783–1796, the Regent's (later Governor-General's) Office in Riga was created. It consisted of two subdivisions dealing with local matters and Russian affairs. After an administrative reform in 1796, the Reval Governorate was renamed Governorate of Estland, and Riga Governorate renamed Governorate of Livland. The "third" Baltic province of Courland was annexed into Russian Empire after the third partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795. The Baltic Governor-General was the representative of the Russian Emperor in the provinces of Livland, Estland and Courland. He was appointed by the Emperor and was subject to the latter as well as to the Senate. His duties were regulated by laws and instructions from central authorities. From the beginning of the 19th century he acted as an intermediary between the government ministries in capital city Saint Petersburg and the local administration of the Baltic governorates. The Governor-General, the highest local executive