1. Université Paris-Diderot – Paris 7
UFR d'Études Anglophones
Bât Olympe de Gouges
5 rue Thomas Mann
75205 Paris Cedex 13
The Perception of Poland in English Travel Literature
through the Long Eighteenth Century
Karolina Godlewska
Master 2 Dissertation (British Civilization)
Under the direction of Mr. Robert Mankin
June 2013

2. "When we reflect on the abject state to which a country is
reduced, where public spirit is extinct, the Crown degraded, the
Nobility enslaved or driven to wander in exile, and its fairest
provinces divided among foreign powers." (William Wraxall,
Memoirs of the courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna)

3. Acknowledgements
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Robert Mankin,
my masters' thesis advisor. I am grateful to him for giving me the chance to
conduct this project, for his sincere engagements and help with the topic.
I also would like to thank my mother, brother and my whole family
for believing in me throughout the entire process. Most importantly, I would
like to thank George for giving me inspiration, being patient and
encouraging me.

4. Table of contents
1 . I n t r o d u c t i o n
1
Chapter I. The importance of the Grand Tour and travel literature in history
8
1 . 1 . T h e G r a n d T o u r
8
1 . 2 . R e a s o n s o p p o s i n g t r a v e l l i n g
13
1 . 3 . T r a v e l l e r s t o E a s t e r n E u r o p e
18
1 . 4 . T r a v e l l i t e r a t u r e
23
1 . 5 . T y p e s o f t r a v e l l i t e r a t u r e

5. 23
1 . 6 . T h e i m p o r t a n c e o f t r a v e l l i t e r a t u r e i n h i s t o r y
30
C h a p t e r I I . P r o g r e s s
32
2 . 1 . P r o g r e s s – a k e y t e r m o f t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t
32
A n n e - R o b e r t - J a c q u e s T u r g o t
34
A d a m S m i t h
35
J e a n - A n t o i n e - N i c o l a s C a r i t a t d e C o n d o r c e t
36
P r o g r e s s a s p o w e r
38
2 . 2 . ' N o b l e ' v s ' I g n o b l e S a v a g e s '
39
2 . 3 . T r a v e l l e r s o n P o l a n d
43
B e r n a r d C o n n o r , T h e H i s t o r y o f P o l a n d
43
Joseph Marshall, Travels through Holland, Flanders, Germany

6. 46
William Wraxall, Cursory remarks made in a tour through some of the northern parts of
Europe
and Memoirs of the courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw
50
William Coxe, Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark
53
2.4. Theory of primitivism and its place in travellers' accounts
56
2 . 5 . F e u d a l i s m
57
Chapter III. Cartography in the eighteenth century as an example of progress as
power 63
3.1. State of cartography in Europe in the eighteenth century
63
3 . 2 . S t a t e o f c a r t o g r a p h y i n E a s t e r n E u r o p e
66
3 . 3 . M a p s a s a l a n g u a g e o f p o w e r
71
3.4. Examples of the maps presenting Eastern Europe
78

7. C h a p t e r I V . R a c e a n d s l a v e r y i s s u e s
93
4.1. Problem of race in the eighteenth century
93
4 . 2 . P o l i s h e s s e n c e
95
Connor about the essence from the times before the partitions
97
M a r s h a l l o n l u x u r y a n d r e l i g i o n
98
W r a x a l l o n S a r m a t i a n t r a d i t i o n s
100
C o x e o n t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s w i t h t h e J e w s
102
4 . 3 . S l a v e r y
105
4 . 4 . S l a v e r y i n P o l a n d
108
T h e n o b i l i t y a n d t h e p e a s a n t s
109
T h e n o b i l i t y a n d p o l i t i c s
113
F o r e i g n e r s a n d P o l a n d

8. 114
Catherine the Great and Stanislaw August Poniatowski
116
4 . 5 . D e p o p u l a t i o n a n d r u i n
117
5 . C o n c l u s i o n s
119
B i b l i o g r a p h y
124
Table of illustrations
Figure 1 Premiere partie de la Carte d'Europe contenant la France,
l'Alemagne, l'Italie, l'Espagne & les Isles Britanniq(ue)s (1754)
81

9. F i g u r e 2 E u r o p e ( 1 7 5 5 )
83
F i g u re 3 A t l a s M i n i m u s o r a N e w S e t o f P o c k e t M a p s ( 1 7 5 8 )
84
Figure 4 Poloniae Regnum, Ducatusq Magnae Lithuaniae (1762)
86
Figure 5 A new map of the Kingdom of Poland with its dismembered provinces (1787)
88
Figure 6 Poland, Shewing the Claims of Russia, Prussia & Austria (1795)
90
F i g u r e 7 P r u s s i a n D o m i n i o n s ( 1 8 1 0 )
92
1. Introduction
In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Grand Tour became very popular in
England; it was the fashion to travel around the continent. The most popular destinations
were France and Italy. The Grand Tour reached its peak of popularity in the eighteenth
century, mainly due to economic improvements and transport, as well as ideas from the

10. Enlightenment. These ideas proclaimed the development of self, progress and freedom.
They influenced many travellers to set off on a journey because these trips were, for all
participants, a practical attempt to educate and develop oneself and acquire new qualities.
It was done not from books but through real contact with people and their existence,
fulfilling ideas of empiricism.
The majority of interest in travel literature during the eighteenth century came
from the Grand Tour. The travelogues were, next to the novels, the most amusing of the
literary genres. They were significant at the time because they influenced ordinary
readers (as well as scholars, philosophers and other travellers) to give specific opinions
on different subjects. Currently, travel literature provides a great deal of information
about the past, information that is very useful to historians and anthropologists.
In the second part of the eighteenth century travels to the other parts of Europe, as
well as other continents, became more and more popular. In the epoch of the reign of
Catherine the Great (1762-1796), a new variant of the Grand Tour appeared among
travellers – the Northern Tour, guided especially towards Russia, helping to satisfy the
curiosity regarding the growing power of the Russian Empire. The war of the Austrian
Succession (1740-1748) established Austria as a significant nation in Europe. The
country was placed directly between the West and the East, hence Austria was a place
worth visiting in the East. A few decades after the war, Austria combined forces with
Russia and Prussia (with Frederic II leading the growing potential of Prussia) and
together they conducted the first partition of Poland in 1772, the second in 1792 and the
third in 1795. These events disturbed the other countries of Europe who considered them

11. as absolutist proceeders. These were the main political events and therefore the main
reasons why travellers could have been interested in visiting Eastern Europe.
Considering the distance between England and the East of Europe, this part of the
continent was particularly interesting for the travellers. It was due to their curiosity about
new cultures, customs, and most likely, the policies and impact of these countries on their
own. As mentioned before, the political situation in this part of the continent was
violating the most noble ideas of the Enlightenment; hence there was an interest in
exploring the state of affairs thoroughly.
Among other places, travellers very often visited Poland. The country was very
ambiguous. Many writers could not decide if Poland was the first country belonging to
Asia or if it was still a part of Europe. Another question that was being asked was one
regarding the refinements and improvements of Poland. As Poland was not a significant
country on the European political field and was not a precursor in scientific or cultural
creations, many considered it as an unimportant nation. A few of the travellers decided to
check why Poland had a negative image while the whole Europe was and meant to be
developing. It is this perception that is the main theme of this work.
There are three types of primary sources used in this paper. The first group consist
of travel literature. The first important traveller, who was widely acknowledged as the
first author writing about Poland in English, was Bernard Connor. He was an English
physician who travelled to Poland in order to work as the guardian of the son of an
aristocrat. In 1694 Connor was appointed a physician to the Polish king that resulted in
him staying in Warsaw for a year. His material was an excellent source of information for

12. the later travellers. His two volumes of The History of Poland, in Several Letters to
Persons of Quality from 1698 was rich in details about history as well as politics of the
time. In his book Connor presented Poland mainly in a positive light, while mentioning
also that there were still some defects that were of a political nature. He saw that the
nobility was growing in their power, while other nationals were poor and deprived of
rights. The author, possibly influenced by The English Civil War (1642-1651), focused on
relationship between the Poles. Because the nobility had all the political power, it was
them who could improve the situation of a whole country. Connor therefore advocated
the idea of progress raised from political liberty.
Joseph Marshall was another traveller, who visited Poland about hundred years
later; a peculiar case for the historiography of travel literature. Many scholars suggested
that Marshall had never crossed the English border and that his accounts were fabricated.
Despite these accusations, Marshall has to be granted with an extreme talent, especially if
he indeed wrote his books without travelling. His work, Travels through Holland,
Flanders, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland, in the
years 1768, 1769, and 1770, consists of three volumes containing detailed accounts of
different places. It was impossible for him to copy the work of others since Marshall
travelled before of most of the well-known travel writers. What is even more striking is
the fact that his accounts resemble a lot those of later travellers. They all decided upon
similar itineraries, visited the same places and provided similar descriptions. Marshall
offered the most focused account of the significance of economy. There is a theory that he
was a physiocrat due to his constant emphasis on agriculture, trade and commerce. His

13. economic beliefs, along with his strong opposition to slavery, suggest that Marshall could
have been inspired by the work of Adam Smith. However, the Wealth of Nations was
published seven years after Marshall's Travels, the influence therefore is not so straight
forward. Marshall is a truly ambiguous character for the historians, but for his
contemporaries the most essential were his opinions on other countries. He was a true
spokesman of the Enlightenment and of the idea that progress can be obtained only
through a stable economy and the freedom of people.
William Wraxall was the only traveller who visited Poland twice. He documented
his first tour in 1774 in the book Cursory remarks made in a tour through some of the
northern parts of Europe, particularly Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Petersburgh. He
came back to Poland three years later. The record of this trip can be found in Memoirs of
the courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna, in the years 1777, 1778, and 1779.
Wraxall was the first traveller to encounter Poland in the official period of the partition.
The situation in the country must have been declining through the years, as Wraxall's first
book was a lot more optimistic than the second, although both related to the times after
the partition. In Cursory Remarks he described many places from an anthropological
point of view. Later, in Memoirs, he aimed at judging the guilty for a disgraceful situation
of the country, and innocent for their passiveness. Wraxall saw progress in social
improvements and freedom. From his accounts there are manifestations of a vision of
development focused primarily on social liberties.
William Coxe was the most well-known travel writer to his contemporaries; now
he is also very much acknowledged by the scholars. He was well-educated as a historian,

14. therefore his books are an example of well-constructed historical sources. Coxe is
considered to be the most objective of all the travellers due to his attention to the past as
well as present events connected with a specific story he encountered. His book Travels
into Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, interspersed with historical relations and
political inquiries was published in 1784 and each part of it provided a detailed account
on different parts of social, political and economic life. The same was the case for his
writings on Poland. Coxe created an image of the country from the past, to help the
reader understand various changes caused by the historical events. The description of an
eighteenth-century Poland is pessimistic and Coxe seems to blame for that state not only
political authorities (as was done by Connor), the government lacking in economic
decisions (as suggested by Marshall) and people being passive in regard to the declining
state of their country (reference to Wraxall), but all these individuals taken together. Coxe
adopted a holistic approach towards the improvement of Poland and hoped for refinement
in all areas of life.
The second type of the primary sources, used for the purpose of this paper, were
the books of the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Among the most significant figures
of the eighteenth-century domain of philosophy, Adam Ferguson, David Hume and Adam
Smith find a special place in this work. The strong mutual connection between the
travellers and philosophers of the Enlightenment forced them to analyse the books of the
aforementioned writers, in order to find the influences of the travellers on the writer's
perception on other countries, as well as the impact they had on the travellers.
Another kind of primary sources are maps of Europe, or most often Eastern

15. Europe. Maps, as an attribute of every traveller, are an example of a visual representation
of the visited countries. As travellers created literary descriptions, it is worth paying them
attention in order to compare them with their visual equivalents. Both works, literature
and maps, have to be read carefully, in between the lines, because both can carry
important details suggesting the power of one country over another. The aim of this paper
is to answer the significant question concerning power: did England enforce any kind of
power over Poland in the eighteenth century?
An attempt to answer this question can be found in the most important secondary
source of this work, a book Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the
Mind of the Enlightenment by Larry Wolff. Wolff is a professor of history at Stanford
University with an interest in, above all, Eastern Europe, Poland and the Enlightenment.
In Inventing Eastern Europe he presented a thesis that the backward Eastern Europe was
invented by the ideas of the Enlightenment as a complementary part to the developed
West. Wolff's thesis about the faults of the Enlightenment and England finds its place in
other secondary sources of the historians who were also critical about the age of reason.
Such authors were, among others, Robert Brenner, Daniel Chirot, Stuart Hall and Peter
Marshall. Jeremy Black is a historian who devoted his work to the study of the Grand
Tour, therefore his books were the most essential in finding information about the
background of this specific event in history. Charles Batten in his book Pleasurable
Instruction. From the Convention in the Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature provided
significant research on travel literature that appeared to be of great importance in this
paper.

16. In the first chapter the general background for the Grand Tour is presented. The
Grand Tour is described in terms of people's reasons for travelling, types of travellers and
typical destinations. Among countries like France and Italy, Eastern Europe finds its place
as a new and unknown part of the continent. This novelty would discourage many people
for the set of reasons, explained in the next point of the work. Further, there is an account
of the travellers visiting Poland: Bernard Connor, Joseph Marshall, William Wraxall and
William Coxe, and their motives to travel there. The following part is discussing the
subject of travel literature, its different types and its importance in the past and its
significance for the present times.
The second chapter is an analysis of a very broad idea of the Enlightenment – the
progress. Firstly, the progress is examined through an example of the philosophers
believing in the importance of freedom in acquiring an improvement. The discussed
figures are: Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, Adam Smith and Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat
de Condorcet. In opposition to the idea of progress-as-freedom is a concept of progress-
as-power that finds its place in the next point of the work. Further, there is explained a
theory that combines the two above mentioned approaches to progress, namely a theory
of the “'Noble' vs 'Ignoble Savages'.” Later in the text, each of the travellers' accounts is
analysed in order to find out if the theory found its reception in travellers' stories. The
conclusions from this research aim to answer this well-posed question. It also leads to
another part, in which feudalism is described as a dominant system in the eighteenth-
century Poland; a system that did not let Poland become a 'noble savage'.
Chapter three gives an insight into the state of cartography in eighteenth-century
Europe. In the first part an emphasis is put on the success of this domain in the west. The

17. second part shows the differences in attitudes towards cartography between the countries
of Eastern Europe, Russia and Poland. The information is then followed by the
explanation of the theory of 'maps as tools for power', created by Brian John Harley. The
last part is an exemplification and a discussion on the maps created in the eighteenth
century representing Europe, with an emphasis put on Poland. The maps are in this
chapter are an example of an indirect intellectual power enforced over Poland.
The last chapter is an example of direct power that brought Poland to decline. The
first part explains the background of the issues connected with race. Afterwards, the
description of a 'Polish race' reveals a particularity of the Polish essence and of national
character. Further, each of the travellers are analysed from the point of the specific
characteristics they noticed about the Poles: Connor is examined regarding the essence
from the times before the partitions, Marshall is discussed in the context of luxury and
religion, Wraxall is analysed in regard to the Sarmatian traditions and Coxe is described
in terms of the relationships of the Poles with the Jews. This part leads to the issue of
slavery, the background of which is presented in the next part of the chapter. From the
general view on slavery, the travellers' accounts are examined once again in order to find
out specific examples of slavery in Poland: the nobility vs the peasants, the nobility vs
politics, foreigners vs Poland and Catherine the Great vs Stanislaw August Poniatowski.
The conclusion of this part leads to the negative opinion of the country, namely
depopulation and ruin, that find their place in the last part of the work.
This paper is different from existing works because it gives an overall view on the
historical situation in Poland and its perception by the English travellers. The local
perception on slavery and race is strongly connected with issues concerning England at

18. the time. There are many other common points between English visitors and the Poles
that are not that obvious at once. The discrepancy found in the Enlightenment was one of
them. Philosophers and travellers advocated freedom, understanding and objective
knowledge, while they also accepted slavery, judgmental attitudes and the creation of the
false images of different places. For the purpose of this paper, the Enlightenment was
studied in an unconventional way. Its idealistic character was accepted, but only the
inconsistency of some of the ideals, was closely examined. Moreover, the paper aims to
create a representation of social relationships between Poland and England in the
eighteenth century. In a historical context, both countries had not much in common.
Nevertheless, over the period of one hundred years four travellers decided to examine the
country and write extensive accounts about it. There are a few interesting questions to be
asked that will hopefully be answered by the end of this work. Why Poland was such an
interesting destination? What kind of country did travellers encounter there – a European
or Asian country, civilized or barbaric, free or enslaved, progressing or regressing? What
issues emerged from their visits? How did their perception influence the country? How
did this perception change the relationships between England and Poland?
Chapter 1. The importance of the Grand Tour and travel literature in history
1.1. The Grand Tour
In general, the Grand Tour was predominantly an aristocratic usage. Among these
aristocrats there were different groups of people who were particularly interested in
setting out on a journey. In the beginning, the group consisted mostly of young men, who

19. were sent out in pursuit of knowledge concerning different parts of the world. Jeremy
Black believes that it was educational reasons that triggered an interest in the Grand Tour.
The principal arguments advanced in favour of foreign travel were that
it equipped the traveller socially and provided him with useful
knowledge and attainments. It was partly for this reason that many had
part of their formal education, at school, academy or university, abroad
[…]. Education has been a central theme in British travel abroad from
the outset.
1
The main advantage of the Grand Tour for a young traveller was the possibility for him to
obtain empirical knowledge, that he could not have found in books. Education at foreign
universities combined theoretical accomplishments with practical skills. This seemed like
the highest of all achievements, so many families decided to provide such educational
opportunities for their children.
The aristocratic boys were only one part of the larger group of travellers. Others
were setting off mainly to do work. These travellers were usually of an upper-class origin
politicians or ambassadors, also tutors, writers or children guardians. Usually, the lower
class of travellers, working abroad, had patrons or respectable friends who financially
sponsored their trips. This resulted in them writing letters with accounts of their
reflections on the places they visited. This correspondence could also have been due to
the need for the reporting of the progress of a journey and of a proof of the money spent.
Travelling for practical purposes was slowly transformed into tourism for pleasure
more than work or education. Tourists in this sense, travelled around the continent,
visited different places, enjoyed works of arts and explored new cultures. Their

20. discoveries resulted in many written accounts of their travels, in which the descriptions of
new experiences mingled with their own reflections. Due to the existence of a new
literary genre, travel literature, more people had access to discovering new lands through
travellers' books. Also, many writers, philosophers and anthropologists decided to visit
the continent in the footsteps of their favourite travellers, with their books as travel
guides. Readers in England became especially interested in the new literary genre,
making it one of the most recognizable of the century. People at the time already knew
the importance of travelling, proven by the conclusion of Richard Steele stated in 1712:
Certainly the true end of visiting foreign parts, is to look into their
customs and policies, and observe in what particulars they excel or
come short of your own; to unlearn some of the peculiarities in our
manners, and wear off such awkward stiffnesses and affectations in our
behaviour, as may possibly have been contracted from constantly
associating with one nation of men, by a more free, general, and mixed
conversation.2
Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, a friend of the traveller Joseph Addison.
In the excerpt from his essay for the magazine The Spectator he noticed the importance
of an anthropological approach towards newly explored lands and people. He focused his
attention on the comparison of the experiences of people from the visited places with
those of the travellers, in order to improve general manners and behaviour. Steele
believed that this improvement was the most positive aspect of travelling for the society.
Historians tried to focus on other, not necessarily historical or ideological, reasons
for setting off on a tour. Interestingly, Michael Mewshaw turned his attention towards
psychology and used the theory of Sigmund Freud.

21. The good doctor Sigmund Freud speculated that 'a great part of the
pleasure of travel lies in the fulfilment of these early wishes to escape
the family and especially the father'. In that sense, travel may be viewed
as a rebellious, even a subversive act, part of the process of self-
actualization. I travel to define and assert my existential identity. I
travel. Therefore I am.
3
Mewshaw concluded that one can travel for his or her
4
own satisfaction and a feeling of
self-accomplishment. Similarly, Paul Fussell in his book Abroad: British literary
traveling between the wars, stated that travel has a big impact on the state of arts, culture
and society in general; “Without travel, Fussell claims, there's inevitably 'a loss of
amplitude, a decay of imagination and intellectual possibility corresponding to the literal
loss of physical freedom'.”5 Thence, travelling at the time not only helped in developing
geographic and anthropological studies, but also, and perhaps most importantly, formed
people's lives. Moreover, experience of travelling was essential in traveller's lives and
developed their attitudes. Their presence in different countries also had an impact on the
citizens. In addition, the literature they produced, built the attitudes of the readers. These
examples exhibit the versatile role of travelling.
The Enlightenment was also an influence in travelling. The notion of freedom,
that was essential in the Enlightenment as well as eighteenth-century travelling, can be
divided into two issues. The first was due to the rise of colonialism in the sixteenth
century. Colonialism meant increased contact with other cultures, mainly on other
continents, so the need to explore the countries in Europe also needed to be satisfied.

22. Secondly, due to the importance of the Enlightenment's ideas of freedom and
independence, the problem of subordination of people and authoritarian power,
happening in the neighbouring countries, was a big issue that was questioned by many.
As in the 1770s. the political positions of countries such as Russia, Prussia and Austria
was rising, detrimental to Poland, British travellers desired to examine the situation of
subordination from one country to another.
Travellers' accounts are considered by contemporary scholars as anthropological
sources. As anthropology is a fairly new scientific discipline, travel literature serves as a
perfect genre for obtaining information about human life in the past. The travellers were
often influenced by their own history and experiences, when encountering new situations
abroad. This led to mental shortcuts that were distributed in the travel accounts and
therefore reinforced all over the world. One example of a mental shortcut is the
association of an ancient state of affairs in the world with contemporary (eighteenth
century) Poland; an association made often by the travellers. Wolff noticed the same
phenomenon and explained it as the use of travel literature for scientific source material.
He did this in the example of Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel's and Louis-Philippe de
Ségur's accounts (French diplomats and writers).
The juxtaposition of Peyssonell and Ségur, their analogous discoveries
of ancient barbarians in contemporary Eastern Europe, suggests that the
line between literary evocation and anthropological observation was not
an emphatic one. Eastern Europe was precisely that part of Europe
where such vestiges were in evidence, where ancient history met
anthropology. The categories of ancient history that identified the
barbarians of Eastern Europe, […] not only corresponded to the
impressions of contemporary travelers, but also entered directly into the
emerging social science of anthropology […]. For although the Slavs

23. were only one barbarian people among many in the enumerations of
Peyssonell and Ségur, they were to become the essential ethnographic
key to the modern idea of Eastern Europe.6
Wolff explained that experiences in the past, such as travels, created a particular type of
data; data that was highly subjective and marked with personal experience. The spread of
this information, due to popularity of travel literature, transferred these materials into the
scientific domain. It then started to be treated as objective knowledge. Therefore,
travelling was very strongly connected with anthropological practices. Even if the
travellers were not aware of it, every time they observed a specific situation and
described it with respect to the traditions and customs, they were adopting the role of an
anthropologist. Moreover, if travellers and contemporary anthropologists should be
compared, their tasks and methods of work would look very similar. It may mean that
travellers were in fact the first anthropologists.
Nathaniel Wraxall, one of the travellers in the eighteenth century, reduced the
reasons for travelling into a few statements: “the survey of nations and view of foreign
and dissimilar modes of acting and thinking to our own, is not only formed to enlarge the
human mind, and correct its early prejudices, but is calculated to charm and delight in a
supreme degree.”7 For him, travelling was a source of intellectual development,
reflection on the state of one's country and pleasure. Other travellers shared the same
opinion about travelling, at least, according to what they have written in their accounts.
Yet, current historians try to find different reasons for the same journeys. Most of these
journeys are ascribed, on the one hand, to natural curiosity of different political systems
and social life and, on the other hand, to the search for similarities and differences

24. between traveller's experiences and those of foreigners. The latter of these claims
suggests also that travel literature could have been often politicized.
There were different variations in the travelling, however, in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the most common destinations from England were Italy and France,
sometimes also the Low Countries. All these places were associated with high culture,
good education, art and philosophy. The aforementioned reasons for travelling: curiosity,
knowledge, education, could all be satisfied only in this part of the continent. “Around
these bases a variety of possible itineraries could be devised. Personal preference,
fashion, convenience and the impact of external factors – war, political disorder and
disease – were all of importance.”8 There were people who decided to choose
destinations other than the most common ones. They were driven by different kind of
reasons in choosing their stops. Some of them, rejecting the fear of remote places and
lands unadapted to travel, chose Eastern Europe as the perfect place to be explored. This
new variant of the Grand Tour was soon named the Northern Tour. The possibility to
travel to Eastern Europe appeared to be very interesting to the travellers. These places
were attractive as they were a part of Europe, but at the same time, they were distant in
many possible ways. However, the idea of travelling there was appealing only to those
who were not afraid to face the difficulties of travelling and experience a reality that was
often unusual for them.
1.2. Reasons opposing travelling

25. Alongside the popular destinations such as Russia or Sweden, Poland was one
country usually visited simply due to its proximity to these places. Either that or the
mental connection between Poland and Russia. There were a few reasons why travellers
were not interested in this itinerary. Firstly, as Jeremy Black concluded, it was not an
interesting place to be, compared to the refinements of Italy or Paris. Moreover, it was
not on the way to any other popular destination, which resulted in it being forgotten by
travellers.9
Secondly, the country was underdeveloped and not prepared for tourists. The
roads and sleeping facilities were in a poor condition scaring off possible visitors. Such
criticising accounts can be found in all written travelogues. Wraxall had to continue his
trip overnight due to unbearable conditions in one of his inns:
The landlord endeavored to persuade me to stay till morning, as I had
five-and-twenty miles to Konitz, through continued forests of sir, and
deep sands. I would have accepted his advice, as, to say the truth, I was
not totally without apprehensions in these woods by night, in an
unfrequented part of Polish Prussia; but the horrid nastiness and
pestilential smell resulting from it, in the cabins, for they cannot be
called houses, at every village where I stopped, made it impossible to
lie down or breathe in them. I therefore proceeded, as soon as horses
could be procured, and about nine Sunday morning I got to Konitz.10
The travellers who decided to visit Poland, such as Wraxall, were prepared to face great
difficulties in order to get any information about the country. Others preferred to follow
the footsteps of travellers to Italy or France, knowing what to expect there.
As the roads were sometimes impassable, British travellers usually visited only
important places in Poland, like the economically significant port in Danzig; “Danzig, a

26. German Protestant fief or protectorate of Poland, contained a British colony and
monopolised almost the whole of Anglo-Polish trade and curiosity.”11 The concentration
of trade in one place, close to the sea border, was only one part of a lack of the bonds
between the two countries. The second was the lack of interest the Polish customers had
in English export goods. The information from the Foreign Office in 1765 stated that “the
Poles consumed no more than some £ 15,000 worth of British textiles, cutlery and other
products every year.”12 Also Marshall in his Travels mentioned that the goods were
mainly imported from Holland and France, not so much from England.13 Although a
number of 15,000 pounds, stated by the Foreign Office, may seem like a big amount of
money, it was still considerably smaller comparing to all the other goods imported to
Poland. When Coxe explained that the economic struggle of Poland was caused by a lack
of balance in trade, he stated specific numbers that depicted the difference between the
number of all imported products and those of English origin (worth £15,000):
As the Poles are obliged to draw from foreign countries the greatest part
of the manufactured goods necessary for their interior consumption, the
specie that is exported exceeds the imported more than 20,000,000
Polish florins, or £555,555.14
Considering that Coxe used genuine information, British imported commodities
constituted only one fourth of the surplus of all the imports. This meant that, indeed,
Polish consumers were not that interested in English goods, another reason for the lack of
a strong connection between the two countries.
The problem of the separation between England and Poland may have also been

27. language. While in Western Europe French or Latin were common languages, further east
it was difficult to communicate. In between the courts or aristocratic households, the
traveller struggled with simple tasks important to his journey, such as fetching horses or
asking for directions.
Poland, as a strongly Catholic country, was considered by a Protestant
Englishman, as a backward place. The situation of non-catholics was difficult at the time:
“Neither government thirsted for the blood of heretics, but each made heretics
uncomfortable. The British representative in Warsaw marvelled at the folly of a nation
which brought in foreign craftsmen only to prosecute them, so that hundreds left at a
time.”15 Poland was considered as the bulwark of Catholicism, with harsh opinions on
dissenters, so it is not surprising there was a lack of interest in this place among the
Protestant British travellers.
Another reason for weak contacts between England and Poland was the mixture
of history and political decisions. In the time of partitions16, Great Britain adopted a
passive policy towards Poland, condemning the dismemberment without any visible
actions: “The statesmen […] during those years realised one and all that Poland lay
beyond their sphere of action. Poland, as one of them bluntly declared, was the least
important to Britain of all Europe.”
17
Considering all the aforementioned reasons, Great
Britain did not feel the need to kindle the fire of interest in Poland among British citizens.
The country was seen as a weak political ally (“Britain thought only of the Poles as a
persecuting race with an idiotic constitution.”) and an intellectually poor nation –
“Characters, natural history, inventions, antiquities, essays, poetry – in all these, […]

28. Poland offered nothing worthy of their attention.”
18
Britain, as one of the biggest
colonial powers, was never interested in Poland as a political ally, considering the
country to be too weak to offer them any kind of support. This lack of political alliance
led to the rare appearance of Poland in the British field of play. Consequently, this
resulted in the creation of a scanty representation of the Poles and their achievements.
There exists another idea of why the Eastern part of Europe was not an interesting
destination for the travellers in the eighteenth century. Larry Wolff, a professor of history
at Stanford University, in his book Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on
the Mind of the Enlightenment argued that, primarily, in the Renaissance, the division of
Europe was based on the cultivated South and the barbaric North. Over time, the interest
in the southern cities of Rome, Venice or Florence was fading much to the benefit of
developing (economically and as political powers) cities like London, Paris and
Amsterdam. The philosophers noticed a changing Europe and they enriched this new
image, enforcing the transition between the old and the new division.
The travellers were significant to this process. Visiting Eastern Europe they
carried “a mental map”19 of this place, connecting the diverse countries into one group,
setting it into contradiction with the West and therefore creating differences. Wolff
provided hegemonic reasons for travelling. He connected voyagers with map-makers and
stated that the latter created the new images of unknown parts of Europe to expose “the
cartographical ambition of Western Europe to master Eastern Europe in the eighteenth
century.”20 This was a long-term process and “not a natural distinction, or even an
innocent one, for it was produced as a work of: cultural creation, of intellectual artifice,

29. of ideological self-interest, and self-promotion.”21 According to Wolff, generation of
such contrast was carried on in order to show the superiority of the West. Western Europe
had a lower status than that of the other parts of Europe, for a long period of time and in
just as many areas of social and political life. As a result, they achieved the creation of
mental association between backwardness of Eastern Europe in opposition to the progress
of Western Europe.
The result of backwardness “was formulated as an intellectual problem of
unresolved contrast.”22 The difficulty, which may have made 'mental mapping' easier,
was the lack of real borders in Europe in the east, in the eighteenth century. People were
not sure where Europe ended and often identified Eastern Europe with the Orient. It is
essential to remember that not all scholars share the same negative opinion about the
Enlightenment. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this paper, it is important to notice the
positive as well as negative outputs of the Enlightenment that resulted in travelling to the
East of Europe.
The feeling of searching for the opposite of the positive West is also explained
through the example of the economy. According to Wolff, the Eastern European economy
was focused on the export of grain to the countries in the West. This reflected the creation
of a kind of periphery, where the centre was the West while the outside, the periphery,
was the East. Such state of affairs organized existing earlier economical models of
backwardness for the East. This idea was explained in the example of the theory of
Immanuel Wallerstein:
Immanuel Wallerstein, in his economic history of the Origins of the

30. European World-Economy, assigns to the sixteenth century the
emergence of a capitalist 'core' in Western Europe, exercising its
economic hegemony over a 'periphery' in Eastern Europe (and Hispanic
America), creating a 'complementary divergence' out of an initially
minimal economic disparity. […] The identification of Eastern Europe
as economic periphery involves, to a certain extent, taking the culturally
constructed unity of the eighteenth century and projecting it backward
to organize an earlier economic model.23
After the period of economic backwardness in Eastern Europe in the sixteenth century,
the region began to develop. The agenda of superiority led the West to represent the other
part of Europe as economically weak. This resulted in return to the old model of the
sixteenth century, when commerce between the West and the East was based on the
centre of trade in the first place that exercised its economic power over the latter. Eastern
Europe economically depended on the West while the West had the ability to direct the
trade in order to obtain the most benefits.
Larry Wolff provided significant evidence for this in his book. In his thesis, Wolff
partly blamed the West, or the Enlightenment, for the backwardness of the East.
The Enlightenment’s accounts were not flatly false or fictitious; on the
contrary, in an age of increasingly ambitious traveling and more critical
observation, those lands were more frequently visited and thoroughly
studied than ever before. The work of invention lay in the synthetic
association of lands, which drew upon both fact and fiction, to produce
the general rubric of Eastern Europe. That rubric represented an
aggregation of general and associative observations over a diverse
domain of lands and peoples. It is in that sense that Eastern Europe is a
cultural construction, and intellectual invention, of the Enlightenment.
24
Wolff argued that the intellectual ideas of the Enlightenment started this false and

31. ignorant construction. Travels and a quest for knowledge were examples of a refined part
of the ideology propagating travelling. Then, the invention of facts and false realities
distorted the image of Eastern Europe. This suggests a withdrawal from the ideology of
reason and truth. This conflict between the theory (noble ideology) and practice
(inventive stories distorting reality), presented on the example of East and West,
undermines the idea of the Enlightenment.
1.3. Travellers to Eastern Europe
Despite negative reasons against visiting Eastern Europe, there were still people
who decided to devote their time to exploring this part of the continent, especially
Poland. Bernard Connor lived in the years 1666-1698 and was born in Ireland. He was an
author who focused his interest entirely on Poland. He was a physician who received his
education in France, where he was appointed by the crown chancellor of Poland, Jan
Wielopolski, to take care of his sons. He travelled with them from France to Poland,
where he spent twelve months in Warsaw and got appointed to be the personal physician
to King Jan III Sobieski.25 The time spent in the capital gave Connor a basis for his
future scientific work as well as his book The History of Poland in Several Letters to
Persons of Quality, which is a detailed account of the country in the seventeenth century
as well as before. The author divided his work into two volumes. The first deals with the
Ancient state of Poland, where he recounted the history of the first kings, their reigns,
particularities of their life or even their legends, until the times of Frederic August; he

32. also described the state of commerce and cities in the past. In the second volume Connor
commented on the Present state of the country. His book became a reliable source of
information about politics in Poland throughout the seventeenth century. Connor devoted
room in his accounts to the fear and predictions about the regression of the country,
caused by the ruling class. He saw progress and development in the appropriate
management of the state and believed that political responsibilities should be performed
for the benefit of the state not individuals. Therefore, Connor was a spokesman of
political liberties leading to development.
It is difficult to find information on another British traveller, Joseph Marshall,
who in 1772 published his travel accounts entitled Travels through Holland, Flanders,
Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland, in the years
1768, 1769, and 1770. What is known from his books is that he focused his visit on the
Central-Eastern part of Europe. He devoted the first volume of his book to Holland, the
second to Flanders, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, and the third to Lapland, Russia,
Poland and Bohemia. In his observations he adopted the attitude of an anthropologist.
Also, contrary to Connor, he didn't focus on past events but the present state of the
countries he visited. He devoted most of his reflections to Holland. Nevertheless Poland
was widely described by him too. Although it is arduous to get hold of his biography, his
name occurs often in the books of the travel historians. In British Residents and Visitors
in Russia during the Reign of Catherine the Great Anthony G. Cross mentioned the
Annual Register whose authors were sceptical about Marshall's travels and “another
writer noted that 'Marshall has published travels through various parts of Europe without

33. once having crossed the channel'.”26 Also Larry Wolff commented on the same question
of the authenticity of Marshall's trip, thus providing some more information about the
man himself –
If indeed Marshall's travels were a fraud and a fiction, his case clearly
suggests that Eastern Europe offered fertile soil to the inventive
imagination. Soil, in fact, was his chief preoccupation for he presented
himself as an English landowner with an interest in scientific
agricultural improvement, touring Europe to make comparative
observations.27
It is true that Marshall devoted a lot of space in his accounts to agriculture. This
attachment may prove the point of Marshall being a physiocrat, which is the additional
information about the man. Moreover, this constant emphasis on the importance of trade,
commerce and agriculture shows that Marshall saw the progress of a country in its
economic liberty. He advocated this commercial freedom as the first step to a larger
development.
Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall was born in Bristol in 1751. He was educated, then
he worked abroad, and then he decided to become a professional travel writer. He
travelled all over Europe, especially Portugal and Scandinavia.28 He wrote his first book
concerning the North-East part of Europe in 1775 (Cursory remarks made in a tour
through some of the Northern parts of Europe, particularly Copenhagen, Stockholm and
Petersburg) and although Poland is not found in the title, the author devoted three letters
to describe what he found out on the way through the country. In his next book, about his
journey undertaken four years later, published in 1799 (Memoirs of the courts of Berlin,

34. Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna), he had already written six letters about the state of affairs
in Poland. Wraxall is considered by historians as a reliable and interesting source of
information:
Nathaniel Wraxall when composing his Cursory Remarks judiciously
directed his steps away from the grand tour to those regions 'where the
greatest novelties were to be expected.' Wraxall's accounts of Sweden,
Russia, and the less-traveled areas of France aim at exciting among
readers novelty and admiration – those two powers most conductive to
pleasure – by studiously avoiding 'the ground usually trodden by the
English, in their passage from Calais into Italy,' it being 'too well known
to afford... any information.'29
Wraxall's works are considered to be written in a sophisticated language and this is the
case for both of the books stated above. Wraxall, when describing reality, told a story to
the reader almost as a poet or a painter. His commentaries are full of picturesque details
that are used for anthropological explanations of the matters. The author decided to write
mainly about customs, people and culture. His accounts consist of a description of his
journey with the emphasis on cities, buildings, people and important events. Although
Wraxall placed different events in their historical context, his books are more a source of
knowledge about culture and social life than history itself. Therefore, Wraxall became an
author who, through his accounts, expressed a requirement of social liberties; general
happiness of people, minimal wealth for all, good infrastructure, proper relationships
among citizens. It seems like these elements were the most important for him on the way
to the growth of Poland and its progress.
William Coxe was born in London in 1748 and later in his life became one of the

35. most important travellers of the Enlightenment. He was a historian and a clergyman of
the Church of England. After his education he became a tutor to Lord Blandford, the
future eleventh earl of Pembroke. For four years Coxe travelled with his student around
Europe, which resulted in his three-volume book Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden,
and Denmark, interspersed with historical relations and political inquiries published in
1784.30 This work is considered as a well structured and informative piece, mainly
because Coxe used to rewrite his accounts by adding important details and basing them
on the geographic, economic and scientific accounts he could get hold of. Anthony G.
Cross mentioned how highly recognised Coxe was in his times – “Coxe became more or
less the Baedeker of the eighteenth century; people would take his bulky volumes on their
own travels; travellers would test their own impressions against his; mothers, indeed,
would follow from afar their sons' progress by reference to his work.”31
Coxe wrote a rich account on the countries he visited and tried to focus his
attention equally on various parts of social, political and economic life. He studied the
history of the countries, observed people of different classes and backgrounds, took part
in important events and presented it all in the form of his detailed books. When
describing the Polish army, he took into consideration all the details, such as the origins
of people, their clothing and even breed of their horses!32 His descriptions, contrary to
Wraxall, consisted of stories from his journeys but also of a historical account. Coxe was
versatile, not only in his writing but also in his mode of thinking. Through his books, he
advocated an all-embracing idea of progress. He was a supporter of political freedom as
well as economic improvements and social advantages. He adopted a holistic vision of

36. progress in which every positive element of life could work for a benefit of the society.
Some of the authors adopted the anthropological methods of research and
described how people lived in society, how the community shaped them, what were the
origins of their customs, what impact a place had on their lives and other similar topics.
Others tried to create a rich source of knowledge about the country they visited by
explaining every domain of life in detail. Therefore, they looked for reasons of specific
policies and customs in the detailed histories of countries, rulers and the impact they had
on the current state of affairs. Although the accounts varied according to the writers,
many of them displayed similar modes of thinking, similar reflections or philosophies
about Poland.
1.4. Travel literature
In the eighteenth century the genre of travel journals, travel narratives and travel
memoirs – in short, travel literature – became one of the most popular in England. They
were widely read by the ordinary people, becoming an education for those who could
afford the price of a book.33 Travelogues were also highly considered by philosophers,
scholars and even other travellers: “travel accounts found honored places on the shelves
of Addison, Locke, Johnson, Hume, Gibbon, and Jefferson, influencing their ideas about
geography, science, and human nature.”34 The most important writers at the time were
attracted by travel literature, so the big success of this genre is usually ascribed to them.
They wrote their own accounts, as well as rewriting others, trying to fit them all into this
specific literary form. Valerie Wheeler sharply stated that “The traveller, a stranger who

37. for the most part remained 'raw' since he rarely visited any place twice, wrote of his
travels to sell books”35 which instantly takes away the Enlightenment's noble ideas of
travel as a quest for knowledge and new experiences.
1.5. Types of travel literature
There are few characteristics that distinguish travel literature from other kinds of
literature:
In distinguishing between fictional and nonfictional travel books and in
describing the 'literary' nature of travel accounts, we have assumed
these works are easily distinguishable from such literary genres as the
novel, the biography, and the descriptive geography. The travel book's
autobiographically determined narrative, however, suggests that it is
merely a specialized form of biography describing the events in an
author's life during a trip. […] Yet travel books also bear a striking
resemblance to descriptive geographies in their treatment of such
objects as the physical appearance, customs, commerce, history, and
laws of specific areas. […] Despite these similarities to other
conventional genres, the travel book seemed an easily distinguishable
literary form to eighteenth-century readers.36
The main features of travel literature that it can be identify by are: autobiographical
narrative, descriptive style and a detailed style of writing. Although these characteristics
could have been found in other literary genres of the period, the readers were still able to
distinguish the travel literature from other types. They are significant characteristics as
they make it possible to find out if an author was subjective or objective in his opinions.
They also help one to find the influences that could have affected the travellers' accounts.

38. Travel literature in the eighteenth century always carried some kind of message; a
message distributed to many people due to travel literature's success. Therefore, it is
important to analyse travel accounts in a technical manner, in order to be able to analyse
them properly in terms of their impact, influences and consequences of specific details.
Batten in his book Pleasurable Instruction. Form and Convention in Eighteenth-
Century Travel Literature went into depth describing the history of travel writing in the
eighteenth century: the motives for writing this kind of literature, its conventions and
uses. In his opinion, the books firstly differed in their destination. Some accounts were
meant to be published and sold, others were written to relatives or friends and meant to
stay private. Naturally, the outcome would vary according to the recipient. If the book
had to meet a wider audience and be a success in the bookstores, the writers often needed
to mix fiction with facts to make their work interesting enough to ensure its triumph. An
example of such book can be seen in the Marshall's accounts concerning Poland; often
considered as being written without travelling abroad. There were many reasons why
Marshall could have decided on the action of writing about a topic that he did not master.
One of the most obvious reasons seems to be the fame and fortune of doing so. Travel
literature was very successful at the time so involvement in such an activity must have
been tempting even for Marshall. The books prepared for selling were polished in their
language and well organized. On the contrary, private accounts could expose a poorer or
easier style of writing, simply because they were not expected to be read by anybody else
other than the writer himself.
Batten focused his attention on finding the features of a perfect style of travel

39. accounts, which should “aim at 'a kind of middle rank between the solidity of studied
discourse and the freedom of colloquial conversation.'”37 According to Batten, the main
feature of a successful narration is a simple style, expressing the honesty of a writer,
without specialized definitions and sophisticated language. Such were the books of Coxe,
Wraxall or Richardson, whose well-written essays on history, politics, economy or culture
provided the information in a comprehensive and poetic fashion. This does not mean that
all private accounts were not appropriate for readers. Anthony G. Cross in his essay cited
an example of Letters from the Continent: Describing the Manners and Customs of
Germany, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland, in the Years 1790, 1791, and 1792; to a
Friend Residing in England published anonymously but attributed to Lionel Colmore.
This book, as the title suggests, was intended to reach only a friend but was published and
widely appreciated. Unusually, the author of this book moved the emphasis of his stories
from the descriptions of a country to those of people, which was a novelty at the time.38
Cross paid much attention to the unpublished accounts, which in his opinion reflect
mostly the immediate reaction to places, people and anecdotes. These observations
usually find their source in private diaries and manuscripts which for a historian are the
origin of a detailed account.
Another step in defining travel literature can be the differentiation of the literary
patterns. Batten made a primary comparison between journal and essay:
After undertaking a journey, an author may publish either a register of
the journey itself or a description of the results of the trip: 'In the former
case, it is a diary, under which head are to be classed all those books of
travels written in the form of letters. The latter usually falls into the
shape of essays on distinct subjects.'39

40. A writer of a diary is usually more believable in his stories but the threat for him is a one-
dimensional narrative. A traveller describes what he observes at the time but does not
match his stories with historical, scientific or cultural backgrounds to thoroughly
understand the cases. A writer of an essay has more advantages because his work can be
more complete and consistent. The travellers of the first kind could have been Marshall
and Wraxall who described their adventures in the journey focusing on realistic depiction
of reality. Connor and Coxe seem to have put more work in their accounts because they
were very well organized.
Another distinction can be seen based on the idea of organizing the accounts as
narratives. Firstly, there are journals that are labelled by dates. An example of this kind of
organisation is the work of Joseph Marshall who, in his Travels, placed his stories into
separate chapters and kept a proof of dates in every single part. The reader can easily
keep track of him and see how long the specific parts of the trip took him. There is also
an epistolary form that can be found in the accounts of Bernard Connor in his book The
History of Poland. Connor wrote letters to his patron, Lord William Dartmouth, and in
each of these letters he maintained detailed information about different areas of interest
concerning Poland. According to Batten, there is also a difference between the two ways
in which organising the writing can become unclear. This finds its example in the work of
Nathaniel Wraxall. In Cursory Remarks Wraxall wrote in the form of letters, to Lord
Viscount Clare, yet, he used headlines in the form of dates. Therefore, this distinction
may be important for some authors, but for others it was simply a means by which they

41. could keep track of their adventures as well as to write strictly to their reader(s). For
contemporary readers such details are significant in matching specific events with dates
and finding historical context for the incidents.
Although tourism was becoming more and more popular, most of the travellers
chose to write anthropological books from their voyages rather than travel guides. Travel
guides were refused as literature simply because of the lack of entertainment on their
part. Although travel literature answered the need for pleasure, it also sometimes focused
on a more utilitarian purpose. It was due to the changes in the reasons why people
travelled at this particular time as well as the changing fashions in travel literature. In the
beginning, apart from educational purposes, people travelled for pleasure and curiosity.
After the first wave of these travel accounts, others were being produced to complete or
replace the old ones, especially those of romantic writers who easily mixed facts with
fiction. At the end of the eighteenth century the books became more autobiographical
than before, memoirs were more often produced, and the impact was put on the creation
of a general judgment in the end of the reading. Another important feature at the time was
an encyclopaedic style of some to some books. The quest for knowledge in the eighteenth
century explains this educational idea that can be found in many respectable accounts:
When Smollett advises readers to look at Keyssler's Travels for a
description of 'every thing worth seeing at Florence,' he recommends
what might be called an encyclopedic travel book. Keyssler attempts in
his almost two thousand pages to describe every object of interest not
only to the reader who sits at home, but also to the traveler who needs
practical advice while on the road and in the principal cities of Europe.
[…] Filled with such a large store of useful information, Keyssler's
Travels understandably became a handbook for tourists like Gibbon
while on the Continent.40

42. At the same time, the motive of a palimpsest text became popular among the
writers. The account was meant to reflect the idea of a text within text; conveying themes
from literature, philosophy and all that was connected with the story:
La littérature de voyage constitue ainsi une généalogie dense et
complexe, accompagnée de figures obligées comme l'hommage aux
plus vénérables des 'philosophes péripatéticiens', Montaigne, Bacon - en
fait toute une méta-bibliothèque, un texte-palimpseste, une chaîne
d'échos textuels, de reprises et de dénégations.41
Naturally, after an interest as such and the popularization of travel literature,
writers were in pursuit of a new subject, or rather new places, to entertain their readers
who had already heard a lot about the traditional Grand Tour destinations such as Italy
and France. Therefore, some travellers decided to explore new countries and regions,
Eastern Europe was one of them. In his book, Batten seems to be raising a question that is
connected to the transition between the reasons of writing travel literature: 'what is more
important in the travel accounts: pleasure or utility?'. He answers it by saying: “the travel
account directed to the general reader, the one in search of something more than
assistance in preparing for his own travels, always aimed at blending pleasure with
instruction in order to achieve an artistically pleasing literary experience.”42
Out of all the analysed travellers, it was Coxe who created an account that was the
most rich in literary sources. He worked on public and private letters, political documents
and decrees, books regarding the subject of his interest and other travellers' narratives. A
story of an assassination of the king was told to Coxe by Wraxall, of whom Coxe wrote

43. with extreme fondness:
The following circumstantial account of this singular occurrence was
communicated to me by my ingenious friend Nathaniel Wraxal, Esq;
whose name is well known in the literary world; and who, during his
residence at Warsaw, obtained the most authentic information upon so
interesting a transaction: as he has obligingly permitted me to enrich my
work with this narration, I am happy to lay it before the reader in his
own words.43
This excerpt shows how intertwined the literary world became in the eighteenth century.
Coxe knew Wraxall very well; so much that he chose to call him a friend. He also paid
Wraxall a compliment by saying that he was a famous writer. Coxe was a very accurate
author. Nevertheless, he trusted Wraxall so much that he decided to write his story and
even did it in his own words. Moreover, the books of both authors resemble each other in
their choice of depicted events from history. Wraxall and Coxe decided to visit Poland in
a similar way, saw the same places and described the same stories. Among others, the
descriptions that strike one with similarity are, that of the castle in Cracow, that of the
story of the Jewess Ester and representation of Warsaw. The travellers must have based
their stories on each others' but, most importantly, they also based their private opinions,
regarding the state of a country, on other accounts.
Coxe used Connor's History of Poland in writing the first part of his accounts.44
Connor's work was also very respected among the travellers as it consisted of a great deal
of reliable information about the political and historical state of the country. The man
resided for a few months in Warsaw, where he had access to the court documents as well
as other official papers that were not available to everybody. His book is rich in

44. information: statistics, the number of residents of each province and in particular the
characteristics of each of the members' of the diet. His account, although sometimes not
stated as such, must have been a primary source for many travellers in discovering the
historical background of Poland.
The traveller who probably worked on Connor's book, although did not declare it,
was Wraxall. His accounts are missing any footnotes or endnotes but considering
Connor's fame it can be assumed that Wraxall indeed based some of his accounts on The
History of Poland. Wraxall did not give out the names of the people that enriched his
book. One of the few was Mr. Wroughton, the English minister in Warsaw. Wraxall
mentioned him very often, as a helpful and very well-informed person at court.
The close relationships between the travellers may lead to the conclusion that they
influenced each other not only through their books but also in life. It seems like Wraxall
influenced Coxe in choosing a similar route through Poland because both men have
chosen to visit the country from the south to the north. Yet, the first of Wraxall's trips, the
one described in Cursory Remarks, was carried on in an opposite direction, from the
north to the south. Moreover, the same journey was undertaken by Marshall in his
Travels. Comparing the four books, two of Wraxall and one each of Coxe and Marshall,
there appear two patterns of journeys. Wraxall in Cursory Remarks and Marshall have
chosen the same route, while Wraxall in Memoirs and Coxe's different one. Probably,
Wraxall, seeing Poland from one side, decided to discover it from another. Still, although
the general plan of visiting Eastern Europe differed in both cases, Coxe and Wraxall seem
like two travellers who had a great impact on each other's books.

45. 1.6. The importance of travel literature in history
The British travellers, visiting the countries of Eastern Europe, made harsh
criticisms towards these places. Such reflections were extremely important in travel
literature, especially that this genre had a great audience back in England. Nevertheless,
the writers had to be careful about their observations, especially ones considering the
political or economic state of affairs in the country they visited.
The traveler who chose to include reflections usually strove for four
essential qualities: his opinions should not be too numerous, they
should arise naturally out of the places described, they should be
original, and they should not prejudicially conflict with accepted moral
or political opinions.45
Although British travellers were taking notice of all such clues, it seems that sometimes
they felt like they were more entitled to the criticism than other people. Valerie Wheeler,
on the basis of the book of Paul Fussell, tried to find out why the criticism in travel
accounts was important and for what reasons the British felt more at ease with criticising:
The traveler expresses judgments about phenomena that violate the
values of traveler and audience and thus entertain, stimulate, and by
contrast reaffirm those values. Fussell speaks of the “unique British
ability to spot anomalies and make a travel book by accumulating a
great number of them” because of “a supreme confidence that one
knows what is 'normal' and can gauge an anomaly by its distance from
the socially expected”, an “unquestioned understanding of the norm and
an unapologetic loyalty to it.” Without anomaly there is no travel book,
no story to tell, and the more wondrous the anomalies the better the
account – thus the tendency of earlier travel books to find cannibals and

46. dog-headed men, to tell tall stories and weird tales.46
The importance of travel literature in history, as well as geography, anthropology,
ethnography, social studies, etc., is immense. This essential nature was noticed by the
Scottish philosophers at the end of the eighteenth century. Both Adam Ferguson in the
second part of An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) and John Millar in The
Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771) agreed on the use of travel accounts in
understanding the past of human civilization. Ferguson believed that travellers were the
link that provided the information about the past that would not be achieved if it was not
for them: “Yet these particulars are a part in the description which is delivered by those
who have had opportunities of seeing mankind in their rudest condition: and beyond the
reach of such testimony, we can neither safely take, nor pretend to give, information on
the subject.”47 Millar was even more sure about the essential role history owes to travel
accounts:
[…] the reader, who is conversant in history, will readily perceive the
difficulty of obtaining proper materials for speculations of this nature.
[…] Our information, therefore, with regard to the state of mankind in
the rude parts of the world, is chiefly derived from the relations of
travellers, whose character and situation in life, neither set them above
the suspicion of being easily deceived, nor of endeavouring to
misrepresent the facts which they have. From the number, however, and
the variety of those relations, they acquire, in many cases, a degree of
authority, upon which we may depend with security, and to which the
narration of any single person, how respectable soever, can have no
pretension.48
According to Millar, working with travel accounts is an accumulative process; once one

47. has many accounts, he can be sure to draw the right conclusion. Both Millar and
Ferguson agreed that the use of conjectures, or even the scholarly works of contemporary
authors, cannot be used as facts about history, simply because they were created by the
current standards. These standards are completely different than ones held by people in
the past thence historians should not work with a subjective, modern approach towards
history. Although scholars have few historical facts about some regions in the world, they
should still work on travel accounts about those places; travel literature can provide even
more information on the subject. The conclusions from travel literature are more reliable
than historical facts because they describe the sentiments, the positions and feelings of
people rather than specific stories. In general history, written from a distance, there is not
much written about the man.
Although Enlightenment's philosophers focused their attention on the rude
civilizations and state of mankind in ancient times, their philosophy of exaltation of travel
literature is still popular among the historians nowadays. Although any encyclopaedia
provides all of the organised information, it is the real perception of countries and people,
as seen through the eyes of a traveller, that exposes the most interesting ideas about the
human being.
Chapter 2 Progress
2.1. Progress – a key term of the Enlightenment

48. The period of the Enlightenment was characterized by noble and cultivated
theories of social order, human happiness and the development of civilization. One of
these theories, namely the idea of progress, appeared to be one of the most important, if
not the dominant. This was mainly because progress could have been linked with all the
other ideas or could become a context for them; explaining their success (progress,
development in a wanted direction) or failure. The eighteenth-century idea of progress
was new compared to the term that was widely used before. Formerly people connected
progress with the work of the divine power, explaining the improvements in society and
human life as decisions of God. The scientific spirit of the Enlightenment influenced and
secularized the idea of progress. Philosophers started to focus on a historical approach to
this idea, emphasizing the importance of natural causes and human experience in
opposition to unnatural acts of God. There were also other contexts in which the idea of
progress was noticed throughout the ages and which influenced it:
The Judeo-Christian tradition, with its linear view that history was
aiming at something (redemption), offered one such intellectual
context, while the traditional Greco-Roman notion of a repeating cycle
of golden, silver, bronze, and leaden ages offered another. […] From the
early Renaissance, humanists envisioned a history in which they
themselves appeared as the worthy successors to classical antiquity,
following a long period of decay and even darkness. The Protestants of
the Reformation echoed this assessment in their criticism of medieval
Roman Catholicism and their desire to restore essential elements of the
early church. By the sixteenth century, the tripartite division of Western
history into ancient, medieval, and modern eras was beginning to
emerge.
49
These different historical contexts persuaded philosophers to study the term of progress

49. and especially its effects on different kinds of societies and civilizations. These context
also demonstrated the long existence of various types of development, something that
impelled eighteenth-century scholars to set forth the question of the state of nature. On
the one hand, the relationship between progress and different stages of development, and
on the other hand, the possibility of applying the idea of progress in various scientific and
social disciplines, resulted in different philosophical approaches towards progress. An
interesting approach for this paper is a differentiation between progress as freedom and
progress as power. The progress seen as different kind of liberties was being advocated
by the travellers (Connor – political freedom, Marshall – economic, Wraxall – social,
Coxe – holistic approach to freedom). Progress understood as power will be the best
observed on the example of cartography later on the text. Yet, the travellers, promoting
different ideas of progress, partly fulfilled the category of power too. They felt confident
in encouraging various actions and criticising possible mistakes but they never justified a
single failure. They usually based the opinions of the superiority of England on the
underdevelopment of other countries, that only enforced the idea of progress as an
ideological power. Before analysing this dual approach of the writers, it is important to
understand the philosophical foundations for the idea of progress seen as freedom. The
most recognized authors of the eighteenth-century working on this theme were, among
others, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Adam Smith and Marquis de Condorcet.
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot He was one of the philosophers who strongly emphasized
the close connection between the idea of progress and freedom:

50. He saw strong evidence in the record of the past for the inevitability of
future advances in science, technology, and moral behavior. […] He
thought indefinite progress was a central characteristic of life, and he
considered the human species capable of perfectibility – not perfection
itself, but an ever nearer approach to perfection.50
Through his universal observations Turgot understood progress as a scientific, not
religious, process. Nevertheless, his reflections on perfectibility were often identified
with those of very religious philosophers at the time, namely Joseph Priestley and
Edmund Law; these men associated progress with Providence. Also Turgot used to
believe in the idea of a progress that is connected with spirituality. Only a few months
before his famous secularized speech, A Philosophical Review of the Successive
Advances of the Human Mind, delivered in Paris in 1750, Turgot was strongly connected
with the Catholic Church. His previous works were influenced by religious beliefs.
Although he added a few details on Providence in A Philosophical Review, this work
completely differed from the ones before. Robert Nisbet in his book explained the shift
into secular philosophy from a religious approach. He emphasized the fact that the
change of Turgot's beliefs fitted perfectly into philosophical trends of the Enlightenment.
Many philosophers and writers at the time had to face secularization of science and social
reality. They had to find a common point between the two realities that were so crucial to
people's lives. Moreover, even the transition itself was a proof of progress, development
and improvement of the human mind.
With respect to the idea of progress, Turgot, without abandoning the
structure of framework of his first address at the Sorbonne, secularized

51. it. He was not the first, nor would he be the last, to put rationalist-
naturalist content into a framework born of Christian dogma. […]
Turgot's experience within a single year can be seen as the very epitome
of the process of intellectual development we have been concerned
with: processes which take us, as it were, from Providence-as-progress
to progress-as-Providence.51
The most important idea of Turgot's work Universal History, from 1751, is the
four-stage evolution theory. In this story of universal human experience he presented four
stages that have been acquired by civilization in the pursuit of development: hunting,
pasturage, agriculture and navigation and commerce. “He deals with the rise of the first
governments, uniformly despotic and monarchical, and the beginnings of human
liberation from political despotism”
52
and on this basis he concluded that freedom is a
necessity in any kind of human development. In the eighteenth-century there was a
tendency to be negative towards government, be in opposition to authoritarian power and
subjection. People with these attitudes were in favour of liberty more than power; when
the idea of freedom leading to progress appeared, they quickly approved it and embraced
it. Freedom and progress became the key terms of the Enlightenment's noble theories of
development.
Adam Smith The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith was also in favour of representing
mankind's development through a stadial model. According to him, analysis of each one
of the stages would present different approaches towards economy and property, allowing
people to recognize these patterns and understanding the history of the present
civilization.

52. Before we consider exactly this or any of the other methods by which
property is acquired it will be proper to observe that the regulations
concerning them must vary considerably according to the state or age
society is in at that time. There are four distinct states which mankind
pass thro: – 1st, the Age of Hunters; 2ndly, the Age of Shepherds; 3dly,
the Age of Agriculture; and 4thly, the Age of Commerce.
53
Similarly to Turgot, Smith advocated existence of freedom in progress, although for
Smith it was an economic freedom. Through the evolution of particular stages he tried to
discover how property developed and what was its impact on people. In the times of the
Enlightenment there were different categories involved with the idea of progress. Among
liberty and knowledge, property was another that became a key-element in working on
the history of mankind, refinement and general development. Smith noticed the
development of modes of subsistence and the importance of legislation that would protect
them. In general, most of the conflicts were due to problems with different kinds of
property. Therefore laws always had to deal with property one way or another.
Smith's method was to use experimental laws and observations from studies of
human nature. He adopted a holistic view on history and did not want to define matters
into closed categories. In the Enlightenment every single aspect of society was
interconnected; thus only a universal and wide approach could have given proper
explanations. Other Scottish scholars followed Smith in his four-stage evolution.
Moreover, Hume, Robertson, Ferguson, Millar, all agreed on the idea of acquiring
freedom through commerce. Most Scottish philosophers agreed that there was no
possibility for a cultivated society to exist if the national system was not developed. This

53. resulted in promotion of economic models of growth in Western Europe. In Eastern
Europe, as well as others, not as economically advanced areas, this theory gave reason to
placing those regions into ideologically lower stages of development.
Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat de Condorcet Jean Condorcet was closer in his beliefs to
Turgot than Smith. He was optimistic in his beliefs in mankind's future. According to
Condorcet, one's happiness could be obtained by his own virtues and ability to progress.
Condorcet in this idea put an emphasis on all the virtues of a human being and his natural
need to improve. His work Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human
Mind advocated the perfectibility of the human being and is also an example of another
stage theory of development:
While in hiding from the Jacobins in 1793-1794, he wrote a Sketch for
a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind that is often
considered the epitome of Enlightenment belief in progress. It described
ten epochs of history, linked by the advancement of rational intelligence
along a path of indefinite progress, despite the great weight of
priestcraft and other obstacles. Historical progress had occurred in all
domains, had quickened recently, and was capable of further
acceleration by knowledgable human effort. Limitless perfectibility
being a principal characteristic of the species, the coming tenth epoch
held enormous promise.
54
In the description of Condorcet's theory, Turgot's perfectibility and secularization are
combined with Smith's stages of development that were modified into study of different
epochs. According to Condorcet, he himself lived in the ninth epoch, which would be
followed by the tenth – possibly due to the French Revolution. Along with the revolution,

54. he praised science as a crucial factor in progress towards the future. Science could not yet
rule society because of deeply rooted religious influences that still existed. He was
confident about the future of society and strongly believed in intellectual forces that
would govern humankind in the next epoch.55
As a scholar working from the intellectual heritage of Turgot, Condorcet has also
put great emphasis on equality in society. However, this equality was not universally
advocated. Condorcet presented the need for preserving some inequalities that could help
the society as a whole –
It is not absolute, total equality that Condorcet seeks and predicts for
the future; not a levelling of human beings for its own sake. As we have
already seen, Condorcet, for all his animosity toward the kinds of
inequality, took note of the importance of preserving the possibility of
those inequalities which will be “useful to the interest of all.”56
Presumably, these would have been legal inequalities. Despite that, the philosopher was a
true supporter of human liberties also for women, slaves and ethnic minorities. It can be
stated that Condorcet was a spokesman of ideas that were chiefly established in society
only two centuries after his death.
These three representatives, of the stand in philosophy emphasizing freedom
connected with progress, must have been an influence for the many contemporaries,
travellers among them. In travel literature, the resemblance between these philosophical
theories and suggestions on progress done by the travellers is great. For example,
Marshall was a spokesman of Smith's theory due to his opinion about the importance of

55. trade in a country's development. He was also a supporter of Turgot's concept of
secularization, as he was against the influence of religion on political matters. These and
other connections with philosophy of progress-as-freedom will be shown later in the text.
Progress as power Robert Nisbet in his book History of the Idea of Progress made a
distinction between two philosophies of progress in the eighteenth century – progress as
freedom and as power. As described before, the theory of individual freedom was deeply
rooted in the minds of philosophers, similarly to a theory of power, although the latter
was mostly developed in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, there were still thinkers of
the Enlightenment who worked on this issue such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henri de
Saint-Simon. This idea has an indirect connection with the situation of Eastern Europe at
the time, as we shall see.
According to Nisbet, in the years 1750-1900 the new doctrines of nationalism,
statism, utopianism and racism soon came into life. They were all in use in the name of
some kind of progress; usually conflicts were covered up with ideas of liberation or
development. The philosophers who dealt with this tradition were also supporters of
freedom but Nisbet explains that this freedom, connected with power, differs widely from
the definition of freedom used by Turgot or Smith.
Freedom here is inseparable from some proffered community –
political, social, racial, or other – and from the uses of coercion and
strict discipline, when needed. Only through closer and more devoted
awareness of himself as an organic part of the absolute state would the
individual achieve, in Hegel's perspective, true freedom – a 'higher
freedom' than that posited by an Adam Smith.57

56. According to the philosophers, there was a need for influence, leadership and guidance
by cultured and educated people. These would protect civilization from decline and lead
it to the higher stage of development.
This idea of genuine influence between the nations was very noble. However, two
centuries later the belief in such influence was transformed into a theory of superiority of
one nation over others in the World Wars. The similar treatment, although more in an
intellectual than practical way, was observed in an example of relationships between
Western and Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment's conviction
about the need of guidance in less-developed countries and its belief in the superiority of
the West somewhat excused wars, colonization and intellectual imperialism in the world.
This idea of progress linked with power was two-way. On the one hand, it was utopian
and virtuous, because it was aimed at the improvement of civilization. On the other hand,
it exposed the weaker countries on the actions of authoritarian powers and therefore
deprived people of their individual liberties.
58
2.2. 'Noble' vs 'Ignoble Savages'
Progress understood as the need for power and dominance was one of the
ideologies of Western imperialism in the world. Various wars for new territories were
explained by the protection of the citizens from unwanted foreign influences.
Explorations of new continents, regions and dominating the inhabitants were explained

57. by the need of the implementation of infrastructure to improve the state of the places.
Finally, colonization was explained by the will to bring civilization to savage nations. All
the above historical facts, resulting in dependence and a lack of freedom, are negative
examples of the discourse of progress as power. However, there appeared an another way
of understanding this negative discourse. Savage tribes started to be seen not only as
conquered peoples without any potential, but, in some cases, also as interesting
individuals.
In general, it was literature and art that focused firstly on the figure of a 'noble
savage'. This was due to different reasons, among them the shock of a new world. Also,
one of the motives was the same as the reason of writing travel accounts – the lack of
original topics and looking for new, innovative subjects and ideas. This could have
seemed like a good idea, especially because newly conquered nations were always being
associated with backwardness. This underdevelopment was unusual and therefore
interesting for more advanced Westerners. A unique representation of savages as full of
virtues, being close to the nature and living in a non-corrupted society was exotic and
exciting for readers at the time. In addition, philosophers got interested in the 'noble
savage' and tried to understand the circumstances connected with this phenomenon. The
general explanation of the morality of barbarians was well explained by Lois Whitney in
Primitivism and the Idea of Progress:
Since there is a natural tendency towards goodness among men and a
light of nature by which even the most ignorant may know natural law,
the laws of nature may often be more graciously followed among
'peasants' and 'simple men' than among more learned people. The
complement to this corollary is the generalization that civilized men

58. have so degenerated that they no longer readily recognize or follow the
laws of nature. But a third corollary provides for a few 'beautiful souls'
even in our modern civilization who are so good by nature that they
follow the laws of nature unconsciously.
59
This idea was first developed via the example of the conquered savages of North America
and other colonized countries in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, it also
corresponds with the Europe of the eighteenth century. The West and East could equally
represent the corrupted nation on the one hand and natural morality on the other.
Having a new context for the conquered peoples, some philosophers were very
keen on developing it with an immediate connection to key terms of the Enlightenment.
The period was focused on liberty, virtues, individual value, human experience and
diversity. Many scholars were working on assimilation of the theory of merit of a savage
to the Enlightenment by asking questions such as: “What had led the West to its high
point of refinement and civilization? Did the West evolve from the same simple
beginnings as 'savage society' or were there different paths to 'civilization'?”60 Hobbes in
Leviathan explained the slow process of development in savage countries with the lack of
stable economy.
In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit
thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth, no
navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea;
[…] and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
61
Although, Hobbes in general did not believe in the greater development of society, in this

59. case he stated a causal link explaining why such a development cannot exist; he
associated the answer with the economy. Rousseau praised the natural society in which
man lives without any authority. Also, he believed that all the people were virtuous and it
was only a modern society that has corrupted them (a mirror image of theory of
primitivism). Diderot added a supplement to his Encyclopédie, dealing with the travel of
Bougainville to Tahiti, where he warned the Tahitians against the destruction of their way
of life by Westerners. “Thus the 'noble savage' became the vehicle for a wide-ranging
critique of the over-refinement, religious hypocrisy and divisions by social rank that
existed in the West.”62 John Locke believed that modern society in the past resembled
newly discovered lands. He was convinced that uncultivated nations will get to the same
stage of civilization as that which West has obtained.
Stuart Hall examined the theories of Hobbes, Rousseau, Lock and others, and
came up with interesting conclusions on the character of the Enlightenment. In his
opinion, most of the thinkers believed that all the nations of the world follow only one
path of development and some groups can be more advanced while others can stay
behind. The example of the first group was, with no doubt, the cultured West, an example
of the latter, savage Northern America. “This idea of a universal criterion of progress
modelled on the West became a feature of the new 'social science' to which the
Enlightenment gave birth.”
63
Moreover, this discipline kept replicating the same wrong
stereotypes, conventions and labels about other underdeveloped regions in the world.
Therefore, the Enlightenment created a discipline that with direct positive slogans,
indirectly kept reinforcing the differences between the two social orders, if not creating

60. them from scratch as a complementary part of its own perfectionist image.
In Enlightenment discourse, the West was a model, the prototype and
the measure of social progress. It was western progress, civilization,
rationality and development that were celebrated. And yet, all this
depended on the discursive figures of the 'noble vs ignoble savage', and
of 'rude and refined nations' which had been formulated in the discourse
of 'the West and the Rest'. So the Rest was critical for the formation of
western Enlightenment – and therefore for modern social science. […]
'The Other' was the 'dark' side – forgotten, repressed and denied; the
reverse image of enlightenment and modernity.64
A similar point of view can be found in the previously cited Inventing Eastern Europe by
Larry Wolff. Both authors are rather negative about the idea of a virtuous savage. Before
concluding the existence of such a viewpoint, it is crucial to analyse the accounts of
travellers in pursuit of two approaches: favourable towards 'barbarian Easterners' or
rejecting their 'natural goodness'.
2.3. Travellers on Poland
Bernard Connor, The history of Poland Connor spent a lot of time in Poland so he was
truly immersed in the culture, social life and politics. He wrote his book focusing only on
this one country, unlike other travellers who usually described Poland in opposition to
other previously visited places. This and also the period in which Connor resided in

61. Poland (the period of the reign of the king Jan III Sobieski, considered as a favourable
time in Polish history) influenced him to be more sympathetic with the Polish state of
affairs.
An interesting part of the second volume is the description of the political arena.
The author exemplified policies established at the time or shortly before, such as the
elective crown, the division of government into three parts, the Great Diet or 'Liberum
Veto'. About eighty years before the first partition of Poland, Connor noticed the
disadvantages of these new changes in politics. These would all be cited by his
successors as the main reasons for the partition or the decline of the country. Connor
concluded on the changes by saying:
A mixt Government therefore made out of all these Three, is that which
has proved most Agreeable to the Polish Nation, being a just Medium
between the dangerous Extremities of an Absolute Monarchy, and those
of Aristocracy and Democracy. It is this the Poles have pitch'd upon as
most proper to preserve the public Liberty, and to perpetuate the
Happiness of their State; being, it seems, perswaded that a Body Politic
resembles a Humane in this, that as the one borrows all its Vigour and
Health from a Just Temperament of the different Humours that compose
it; so the other depends absolutely on that of the Three before-mention'd
Forms of Government. And moreover, as the former subsists by the
mutual Opposition of contrary Qualities, so the King, Senate and
Gentry of Poland having in some measure different Interests and
Inclinations, are not only hinder'd from deviating into vicious
Extremities, but also through a Noble Emulation are excited to labour
carefully for the Good of the Public.65
Connor in this passage emphasized that the creation of a new system was meant to be a
consensus between the absolutism, aristocracy and democracy; a new government that
meant to share responsibilities. He was a spokesman of the British system in which a

62. mixed government was a pride for all the citizens. In Poland, although an original system
was right, the corrupted nobility had already started to arrange it for their own benefit.
Although the official version proclaimed freedom from absolutism, the nobles soon after
became a source of authoritarian power in Poland. They used 'progress' as a tool for their
own exercise of power. Bury explained this phenomenon in his book The Idea of
Progress:
The ideals of liberty and democracy, which have their own ancient and
independent justifications, have sought a new strength by attaching
themselves to Progress. The conjunctions of “liberty and progress,”
“democracy and progress,” meet us at every turn. Socialism, at an early
stage of its modern development, sought the same aid. […] It is in the
name of Progress that the doctrines who established the present reign of
terror in Russia profess to act. All this shows the prevalent feeling that a
social or political theory or programme is hardly tenable if it cannot
claim that it harmonises with its controlling idea.66
Although Bury found the examples of the association of progress with various actions in
the history of the twentieth century, his approach can also be applied to the Polish
political arena of the eighteenth century. The political changes were made by nobility 'in
the name of the progress'. They were accepted as a virtuous step towards refinement
although, in fact, they turned out to be mere manipulations in order to gain domination.
Connor noted that the beginning of the crisis started with the death of Zygmunt II;
at the time when the aristocracy came up with the idea of an elective crown and specific
terms and conditions for the new king. These resulted in giving the gentry great
privileges and finally depriving the king of any power. The last king of Poland was the
best example of this conduct, but even Zygmunt III was limited in making decisions.