Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/113

Rh proved so disastrous to the Russian army, the emperor Maximilian despatched an ambassador, named Justus Kantinger, to the grand-prince Ivan Vasileivich, to express, though somewhat tardily, his sympathy, and to offer his assistance. This, at least, was the official purport of his embassy; while at the same time he was to make himself particularly acquainted with the position of the grand-prince, and the state of affairs in Russia. The emperor’s letter is dated from Augsburg, the 6th of August 1502. In another confidential letter of the 12th of August, of which Kantinger, here called the Imperial Falconer, was also the bearer, the Emperor begged to have some white falcons (kretschati) sent to him by this messenger. The grand-prince answered the first despatch in a very long and courteous letter. In a second letter he informs the emperor that he had sent him five falcons, which, for caution and on account of their great value, he had forwarded by an officer of rank, named Michaila Klepik Jeropkin.

In the following year Kantinger was sent a second time into Russia. On this occasion, however, he went, for some unknown reason, to Narva only; and from this place sent, through the medium of the governor of Ivanogorod, a letter of the emperor Maximilian’s, dated at Costnitz, the 6th of March 1505, addressed to the grand-prince; and another from the emperor’s son, King Philip of Castile, from Brussels, dated the 13th of October 1504, to the grand-prince and his son Vasiley Ivanovich. The principal object of these letters was the liberation of certain distinguished