About the fact which we have just related there is no difference of opinion among historians; but there is much between native and foreign writers, as to the circumstances which led to the establishment of the Varangian dynasty in Russia. According to one of the former, four of the great tribes, with the city of Novogrod, being struck with admiration at the wisdom, the justice, no less than the valour of the Northmen, and rendered miserable by their continual dissensions, sent an embassy over the sea for princes that might govern and protect them! “The interests of order and of domestic tranquillity,” says the historian already quoted[12], “induced them to lay down their national pride: the Slavi, says a tradition, influenced by the advice of an aged inhabitant of Novogrod, demanded sovereigns from the Varangians. Our ancient annals do not mention this sage; but if the tradition be true, his name is worthy of immortality, and of a glorious rank in our fasti.” It seems that the Novogrodians and the Krivitches were allies of the Finnish tribes on the borders of the Finland Gulf, and like them tributaries of the Varangians. Subject for some years to the same laws, they could easily draw closer the bonds of the alliance which had formerly united them. Thus, according to Nestor, they sent an embassy beyond the sea to the Varangians, saying, “Our country is extensive and fertile, but we are the prey of anarchy: come then to govern, to rule over us!” “Three brothers, Ruric, Sineas, and Truvor, illustrious alike for birth and valour, consented to assume the reins of government over a people who did not know how to use the liberty which their own right hands had won. Accompanied by a large body of Scandinavians, and prepared to defend by force of arms their own sovereign rights, these ambitious brothers for ever abandoned their own country. Ruric established himself at Novogrod; Sineas at Bielo-Ozero, amongst the Vessians, or Finnish people; and Truvor at Isborsk, a town of the Krivichians.” The internal improbability of this relation, in connection with the total absence of authority for it, must ensure its rejection by every critic.