mass
that the task was one of extraordinary difficulty. Kazan, the first
and greatest of the Tartar cities, too, claimed a sovereignty over the
republics, which Ivan was afraid to contest, lest that which was but a
vague and empty claim might end in confirmed authority. It was better to
permit the insolent republicans to maintain their entire freedom than
to hazard, by indiscretion, their transferrence to the hands of those
Tartars who were loosened from the parent stock.

His first act, therefore, was to acknowledge, directly or indirectly,
according to the nature of their different tenures, the rights of all his
foes within and without. He appeared to admit the justice of things as
he found them; betrayed his foreign enemies into a confidential reliance
upon his acquiescence in their exactions; and even yielded, without a
murmur, to an abuse of those pretensions to which he affected to submit,
but which he was secretly resolved to annihilate. This plausible
conformity procured him time to prepare and mature his designs; and so
insidiously did he pursue his purpose that he extended that time by
a servility which nearly forfeited the attachment of the people. The
immediate object of consideration was obviously the Golden Horde, because
all the princes and republics, and even the Poles and Lithuanians, were
interested in any movement that was calculated to embarrass the common
enemy. Ivan's policy was to unite as many of his enemies as he could
against a single one, and, finally, to subdue them all by the aid of each
other. Had he ventured upon any less certain course, he must have risked
a similar combination against himself. He began by withholding the
ordinary tribute from the Khan, but without exhibiting any symptoms of
inallegiance. He merely evaded the tax, while he acknowledged the right;
and his dissimulation succeeded in blinding the Tartar, who still
believed that he held the Grand Prince as a tributary, although he
did not receive his tribute. The Khan, completely deceived, not only
permitted this recusancy to escape with impunity, but was further
prevailed upon to withdraw the Tartar residents and their retinues, and
the Tartar merchants who dwelt in Moscow and who infested, with the
haughty bearing of masters, even the avenues of the Kremlin.

This latter concession was purchased by bribery, for Ivan condescended to
buy the interference of a Tartar princess. So slavish and degrading
was his outward seeming