In the year 1514, Vassili, entering into a treaty with Maximilian, the Emperor of Germany, laid aside the title of grand prince and assumed for himself that of emperor, which was Kayser in the German language and Tzar in the Russian.  With great energy Vassili pushed the work of concentrating and extending his empire, every year strengthening his power over the distant principalities.  Bajazet II., the Turkish sultan, the victim of a conspiracy, was dethroned by his son Selim.  Vassili, wishing, for the sake of commerce, to maintain friendly relations with Turkey, sent an embassador to the new sultan.  The embassador, Alexeief, was authorized to make all proper protestations of friendship, but to be very cautious not to compromit the dignity of his sovereign.  He was instructed not to prostrate himself before the sultan, as was the oriental custom, but merely to offer his hands.  He was to convey rich presents to Selim, with a letter from the Russian court, but was by no means to enquire for the health of the sultan, unless the sultan should first enquire for the health of the emperor.

Notwithstanding these chilling punctilios, Selim received the Russian embassador with much cordiality, and sent back with him a Turkish embassador to the court of Moscow.  Nine months, from August to May, were occupied in the weary journey.  While traversing the vast deserts of Veronage, their horses, exhausted and starving, sank beneath them, and they were obliged to toil along for weary leagues on foot, suffering from the want both of food and water.  They nearly perished before reaching the frontiers of Rezan, but here they found horses and retinue awaiting them, sent by Vassili.  Upon their arrival at Moscow, the Turkish embassador was received with great enthusiasm.  It was deemed an honor, as yet unparalleled in Russia, that the terrible conquerors of Constantinople, before whose arms all Christendom was trembling, should send an embassador fifteen hundred miles to Moscow to seek the alliance of the emperor.

The Turkish envoy was received with great magnificence by Vassili, seated upon his throne, and surrounded by his nobles clad in robes of the most costly furs.  The embassador, Theodoric Kamal, a Greek by birth, with the courtesy of the polished Greek, kneeling, kissed the hand of the emperor, presented him the letter of his master, the sultan, beautifully written upon parchment in Arabic letters, and assured the emperor of the wish of the sultan to live with him in eternal friendship.  But the Turk, loud in protestations, was not disposed to alliance.  It was evident that the office of a spy constituted the most important part of the mission of Kamal.

This embassador had but just left the court of Moscow when another appeared, from the Emperor Maximilian, of Germany.  The message with which the Baron Herberstein was commissioned from the court of Vienna to the court of Moscow is sufficiently important to be recorded.