Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/13



, Secretary to the Senate, and subsequently a Senator of the Kingdom of Poland, and President of the Royal Society of the Friends of Sciences at Warsaw, was born in 1757, at Skoki, in the Palatinate of Brzesc, in Lithuania. After having finished his education in the corps of Cadets at Warsaw, he spent several years in visiting France, Germany, and Italy.

Having been elected Nuncio for the Palatinate of Livonia, he made a brilliant political debut at the grand constituent Diet, which lasted from the year 1788 to 1792. The Polish patriots had then to contend with the pernicious influence of the powers co-operating in the partition, the prejudices of the nobility, and the ignorance, or even indifference of the