At this period Poland was in a state of great confusion. The Empress of Russia had marched an army into it for the purpose, as she declared, of allowing the popular representatives to act freely, while the king regarded himself as little better than her prisoner. Repnin, the Russian ambassador, actually commanded every thing; and the principal nobility of Poland were compelled to be his agents. Of course, this state of things never could have occurred in any country where the tone of manners was high; and Poland, though the people were brave, and the nobility in general patriotic, unquestionably fell by its own vices. The portrait drawn of Prince Radzivil is the reverse of flattering, but it is characteristic:-- "Prince Radzivil, the marshal of the confederation, was one of the most powerful princes of Poland. His revenues were nearly equal to half a million sterling a-year, though they were at this period much diminished by Russian ravages. He had at one time an army of eight thousand man, with which he opposed the Imperial progress. He afterwards became the tool of the Russian policy, and was rewarded with the first palatinate of the kingdom. He gave a masquerade on the empress's birthday to near three thousand masks; and it was calculated that, besides the other wines, they drank a thousand bottles of champagne." The prodigality of a Polish feast exceeds all comprehension. This prince kept open house on such a scale, that his five-and-twenty cooks were scarcely able to supply his table. The great article of luxury in Poland was Hungary wine, which they had in great perfection, but which was very costly. Champagne was drunk as cider. The multitude of servants in a Polish establishment must have been ruinous. Prince Czartoriski's personal attendants and servants amounted to three hundred and seventy-five. Those in his country-house were still more numerous. His troops amounted to four thousand men. Prince Repnin, though of the Greek church, which abounds in forms and ceremonies, and in fasts exceeds all others, had so little regard for the forms of his religion, that he ordered a play to be acted on Ash Wednesday at Warsaw. Towards Christmas 1767, Lord Malmesbury, then Mr Harris, was at the house of a Polish nobleman in the hunting season. He observed to the king that he had never seen him in better spirits. "Ah!" was the royal answer, "it is very pleasant to delude one's self sometimes." In 1768 Mr Harris began his diplomatic life as secretary of legation under Sir James Gray, then British minister at the court of Madrid. He set out from Paris on the last day of the year, and after six-and-twenty days' journey, in which he loitered but two days on the road, accomplished the eleven hundred miles without accident.