for diforders * committed by his peafants, who, in a fiate of
drunkennefs, would attack and fometimes kill paflëngers :
iince their freedom he has leldom received any complaints
of this fort againft them. Thefe circumftances decifively
confute the ill-grounded furmifes entertained by many Poles,
that their vaffals are too licentious and ungovernable not to
make an ill ufe of freedom. Zamoiiki, pleafed with the
thriving ftate of the fix villages, has enfranchifed the peafants
on all his eftates.
The example of Zamoiiki has been followed by Chrep-
towitz, vice-chancellor of Lithuania, and the abbé Bryzo-
towiki, with fimilar fuccefs. I was informed by a perfon
who had vilited the abbé’s eftate at Pawlowo near Vilna, that
the happy countenance and comfortable air of thefe peafants
made them appear a different race of men from the wretched
tenants of the neighbouring villages. The peafants, penetrated
with a fenfe of their mailer’s kindnefs, have ereéted,
at their own expence, a pillar with an infcription expreffive
of their gratitude and affeftion.
Prince Staniflaus, nephew to the king of Poland, has
warmly patronized the plan of giving liberty to the peafants.
His own good fenfe and natural humanity, improved during
his refidence in England by a view of that equal liberty
which pervades every rank of men, have raifed him
above the prejudices too prevalent among his countrymen :
he has enfranchifed four villages not far from Warfaw, in
which he has not only emancipated the peafants from their
flavery, but even condefcends to direil their affairs. 1 had
the honour of holding feveral converfations with him upon
this fubjeél ; he explained to me, in the moil fatisfaélory
* Called, in the Polifli law, Pro incontitientiâ fubditorum,
3 manner,
manner, that the grant of freedom was no lefs advantageous CHAP-
to the lord than to the peafant, provided the former is w ill- '— i-2i
ing to fuperintend their conduit for a few years, and to put
them in a way of ailing for themfelves; for fuch is the ignorance
of the generality among the boors, arifing from the
abjeit flavery in which they are held, and fo little have they
been ufually left to their own difcretion, that few at firft are
equal to the proper management o f a farm. From a con-
viition of thefe fails, the prince, whofe knowledge and benevolence
I fhall ever revere, continues his attention to their
concerns; he vifits their cottages, fuggefls improvements in
agriculture, inflruils them in the mode of rearing cattle and
bees, and points out the errors into which ignorance and incapacity
occafionally betray them.
The example of this prince, great by his rank, but flill
greater by his humanity, caivfcarce fail of producing its due
effeil, efpecially as he intends giving to the public his arrangements
and regulations, and will fhow how much he
has increafed his eftate and the happinefs of his peafants. Still
however the condition of thefe peafants is not permanent;
for though a lord grants their freedom, yet he cannot entail
it upon them, as his fucceifor may again reduce them to
their original ftate of vaffalage. It is, however, in agitation
to fecure the perpetuity of their liberty, when they are once
rendered free: but this attempt is of fo delicate a nature,
that it muft be introduced with great caution, and can only
be the work of time.
V. In giving an account of the different clafles of men
who inhabit this country, I ought not to omit the Jews, as.
they form no inconfiderable part of its prefent inhabitants.
This people date their introdu&ion into Poland about the
time