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begged me, after I had travelled thither from Augsburg in one and the same carriage, to leave them the vehicle in which I had accomplished so great a journey, that they might place it in their church, as a perpetual memento of the occurrence. Novogorod had also the principalities of Dwina and Vologda on the east, and on the south the town of Tersack, not far from Tver. And although these provinces, from being filled with rivers and marshes, are unproductive, and cannot conveniently be inhabited, nevertheless, the princes who used to rule over these districts would make great profit of the furs, honey, wax, and fish, with which this country abounded. The princes not only themselves constituted by their own will and pleasure the authority which they held, but increased it by subduing the neighbouring nations upon any pretext, and compelling them to pay tribute in their own defence, as if such tribute were levied upon some fairly constituted principle.

From this sort of connexion with nations, whose assistance the people of Novogorod have been obliged to use in preserving their republic, it has arisen that the Russians boast that they maintain their own governors in that country; while the Lithuanians, on their part, acknowledge that they are tributary to them.

At the time that the archbishop himself was directing the affairs of this principality, with his counsel and authority, Ivan Vasileivich, duke of Muscovy, invaded it, and oppressed it seven long years with a disastrous war. At length, in the month of November, A.D. 1477, he overcame the Novogradians in a battle on the river Scholona, and compelled them to surrender on certain conditions, and appointed a governor over the city in his own name. But thinking that he did not yet hold absolute sway over them, and finding that he could not obtain it without arms, he went to Novogorod under the religious pretext that the people wished to forsake the Russian ritual, and that he would bind them to its observance; and under this pretence he took possession of the city, and re-