In 1783 five men left Vienna on a journey to collect plants and engage in natural discovery as representatives of the Habsburg monarchy. The lead scientist, a professor of economic botany at the Theresianum, was Franz Joseph Märter. Together with a painter, a doctor, and two imperial gardeners, the group would make up a self-sufficient expedition, traveling to collect natural specimens to ornament the imperial court and, if possible, provide economic or scientific advancement for the monarchy. Being chosen for the journey was a clear honor, an exciting opportunity, and, they must have thought, a path to fame and future socioeconomic security. The initial plans involved a grand scheme to join a speculator in trade on a trip in the Pacific Northwest, Japan, and China before fully circumnavigating the globe.Footnote ² In reality, the trip brought financial and organizational headaches as the group, traveling as private passengers, stalled first in Europe and then in North America, where two of its members abandoned the mission and empire to become newly minted American citizens.Footnote ³ Only after Märter and the others had spent almost two years in Philadelphia and Charleston, cities hardly known for their botanical rarities, did the remaining three travel—separately—to more tropical regions. The voyage nevertheless produced results in the seeds, plants, and occasional animals and minerals gathered along the way and in the publications that reported on the voyage. Inspired by contemporary naturalists he knew or read, Franz Märter wrote about the human and natural worlds he encountered through his North American and Caribbean travels. As he traveled, he recorded his observations and sent them in carefully written sheaves back to Vienna at regular intervals, where his mentor had them printed in several issues of a scientific journal in the mid-1780s.

This travelogue was the product of a planned expedition to further empire and scientific discovery, which encountered a state entirely new, democratic, and chaotic. Märter's descriptions of the United States of America's abundant nature contrasted with those of its floundering political and economic situation as the nation emerged in independence. His resulting reports on the American states reflected the particular interests and concerns of a natural scientist, member of intellectual academies and societies, and Habsburg subject employed by the state in the late eighteenth century.

Märter's professional interests in botany focused on the practical benefits his knowledge could bring to state and society while his personal interests focused on cultivating intellectual friendships and a sociable life of the mind. In addition to his teaching position at the Theresianum, the elite academy in Vienna, Märter was a participating member of international scientific circles and published books in his field.Footnote ⁴ The title page of a work on Austrian trees and shrubs Märter published in 1781 reveals the extent to which he relied on learned societies for his professional development and sense of an intellectual self. He identified himself not only by name and as a doctor, but also as a member of the “Imperial and Monarchical Lower Austrian Economic Society.” Economic and agricultural societies established in the second half of Maria Theresa's reign across different provinces in the monarchy aimed to organize local elites and direct their abilities toward improving productivity and the general good through diffusing rational, scientifically proven practices to local populations.Footnote ⁵ Märter further dedicated the book to the society and wrote an extensive preface on their beneficence in accepting him into their community and inspiring his intellectual growth. This preface spoke to both Märter's professional aspirations to contribute to applicable knowledge in the natural sciences that could improve Austrians’ productivity and well-being, and his personal enthusiasm for joining other men of letters to work collectively toward progress. The book's title and content emphasized economic utility. A publication the following year also attended to the benefits and profits from plant cultivation. As that work illustrated, Märter's teaching relied on a botanical garden on the grounds of the Theresianum that cultivated economically useful plants.Footnote ⁶ He taught the children of the landed elite there, so through his teaching as with his publications, Märter could hope to make a real impact on the agricultural economy of the monarchy. Historian of science Hubert Steinke identifies three types among the members of letter networks who focused on botany. In addition to scientists and enthusiasts, one sort explored natural science motivated by economic interests for the state and society. Such a person, like Joseph Banks of London's Royal Society, engaged in overseas environmental imperialism and sought to make knowledge of useful botanical developments widely accessible for the population of their lands.Footnote ⁷ This was the approach Franz Märter took to his work. His travelogue reflected this focus on the abundance of nature encountered abroad as a source for economic advancement, if individuals and states had the knowledge, work ethic, and systems of support in place to promote such development.

The state's patronage of the collecting voyage and its corresponding publications confirmed that the Habsburg monarchy had those structures of support. In comparison, Märter would not come to view the United States as having those same opportunities. The intellectual culture and social hierarchies of a European capital, and the state-focused cameralist ideology that sought useful advancements in knowledge, infused his text. His series of reports reflected not just his direct experience of travel, but also the multi-layered intentions behind the voyage and its organizers. His appointment as director of the expedition owed itself to his membership in a freemasonic lodge whose leader was a scientific advisor to the court, and the whole journey was conceived of, paid for, and organized through central figures in this enlightened absolutist state.

Tasked with suggesting subjects for the plant and animal collecting mission after lackadaisical heating of the palace's major greenhouse destroyed many exotic plants, Ignaz von Born also attempted to convince the court that in addition to obtaining flora and fauna, the expedition should seek to produce knowledge.Footnote ⁸ For this expedition, Born deemed Märter an important contributor due to his expertise in useful plants, his knowledge of animals, and his full participation in the international Republic of Letters. A mineralogist by discipline, Born worked for the state as a mining official and later director of the Imperial Natural History Cabinet. He published extensively on various topics, though he is most known for his contributions to indexing minerals and fossils and discovering a new and effective amalgamation process. His work in the field was active until he developed lifelong infirmities after inhaling poison gases in a mine while traveling the eastern lands of the monarchy to gather mineralogical observations. In both Prague and Vienna, Born played a central role in forming intellectual associations and organizing associational publications.Footnote ⁹ He sought to both live a life of the mind among others with whom he could share it, and to have the intellectual contributions being produced in Central Europe recognized more fully abroad. To that end, he cultivated his international networks through membership in major academies from London to St. Petersburg, while also pushing fellow scholars in Prague and Vienna to widen the scope of their audiences and activities. As a mentor, he provided opportunities and the impetus and platforms for the most promising scientists and writers around him in the Habsburg capitals to work toward cultivating knowledge for the advancement of their disciplines, states, and the general populace. The work of the freemasonic lodge he led, and of which Märter was a member, aimed to support these goals. The lodge, called “True Harmony,” held scientific lectures and celebrated the expedition with speeches and toasts as they made their brother's contributions to natural discovery publicly available. Born founded and edited the scientific journal that published Märter's reports and observations over several issues in 1785 and 1786. Physical Work of the Harmonious Friends in Vienna was the product of this freemasonic group of Enlightenment-leaning writers and scientists who tirelessly worked to advance knowledge and bring progress to Central Europe.

Märter's detailed journals recorded his observations on various parts of America to meet Born's expectations that he would contribute to the body of scientific knowledge and enlightened criticism coming out of Vienna. Yet as much as Märter wished to make an impact on the Republic of Letters through his observations, his work had other masters. The ultimate authorities on the planning and designated purpose of the voyage were the vice chancellor of state Count Philipp von Cobenzl and the emperor himself, Joseph II.Footnote ¹⁰ Diplomatic organization, correspondence, and direct oversight fell to Cobenzl, but Joseph II's signed “Placet” on all the reports and plans attests to the absolute monarch's power and presence. While Cobenzl's interests as a garden enthusiast and cameralist minister of the court ensured he had broader goals for this state-supported voyage than simple plant collection for the venues of imperial display, Joseph II was more interested in limiting the costs and requested that the travelers focus on their collecting work alone and not divert their attention to scientific discovery. He wished to replace the tropical plants destroyed by the freeze and subsequent overheating of Schönbrunn's greenhouse immediately before his mother's death, whereas Cobenzl wanted the voyagers to take a more modern approach in seeking plants from similar latitudes that would be more easily naturalized in Central Europe and therefore had more potential to be useful.Footnote ¹¹ All these mixed messages on the desired intent of the voyage were passed along to the director of the expedition who had to bear them in mind as he published his reflections on the journey. Märter had to take care that what he wrote would not cause diplomatic offense. With the emperor and vice chancellor as potential readers, he could also not be too openly or directly critical of the Habsburg monarchy. Finally, he hoped Joseph II would not be led to think he was prioritizing scientific knowledge-building over the practical responsibility of collecting plants, animals, and minerals. Altogether, Märter hoped that Joseph II would read the travelogue as a harmless side project of a dutiful plant collector, Cobenzl would read it as a source of useful economic information with agricultural applications in the monarchy, and Born would see it as a contribution to knowledge adding to Vienna's comparative prestige in the Republic of Letters. Beyond these readers’ interests, Märter also wrote for a broader audience—indeed it was this group he most hoped to inform and influence through his content.

Writing and publishing travelogues about physical and intellectual journeys was a widespread practice in the eighteenth century. Beyond the authors’ desire for recognition and income, many published observations believing in their scientific value—travel narratives sought to provide historical records of the environment, plants, animals, and human societies all clearly categorized with old and new discoveries explained for readers. Yet these writings also detailed personal experiences and involved a chronological retelling of the places, people, and things a traveler encountered.Footnote ¹² To deal with this awkward mix of scientific observation and personal narrative, Märter wrote in two genres. In one set of reports he took readers along with him on his journey, narrating his observations in the order that he came to them over time and distance. Elsewhere, he focused on subject-specific accumulations of observations. Across these two forms of writing, Märter consistently voiced a perspective uniquely reflective of his intellectual leanings and personal background. As a result, the travelogue has a third aspect to its content; in addition to the story of the journey and scientific observations, the topics Märter chose and the observations he made critically reflected on the Habsburg state and society. His seemingly empirical commentary on the newly independent United States of America reflected on several contentious issues in his homeland, such as critiques of serfdom and the division of property.Footnote ¹³ That often implicit content reflected Märter's personal attitudes, while he retained his awareness of his audience and mindfulness of the interests of his mentors and patrons.

Märter's observations and opinions about the new government and its people would not descend into a vacuum, for opinions of that place circulated in Vienna throughout the American War for Independence. Yet as with other German-speaking audiences, Austrian interest in that war, while generally enthusiastic over its ideals and implications, was generally uninformed and vaguely utopian.Footnote ¹⁴ Vienna's central newspaper covered the war extensively and reproduced translated documents such as the Declaration of Independence in their entirety. Readers thus knew of the military engagements, the actions of key military and political figures, and the ideals and grievances behind the conflict. Yet, no matter how frequent and numerous the reports were, the Austrian public lacked access to a cohesive and analytical overview of the foundation of this new country.Footnote ¹⁵ Central Europeans in the late eighteenth century would have been familiar with the conflicting tropes of America as a land of freedom and opportunity and America as the land that suckered settlers into poor situations and death by disease.Footnote ¹⁶ One member of this plant-collecting voyage, Bernhard Albrecht Moll, had been swayed by the idealized version of America. The painter petitioned eagerly for a place on the trip, offering up his artistic services for very little pay in exchange for the opportunity to travel. It took him just a week before he was writing back from Philadelphia, “How splendid I find it in this free North; we have been here 8 days already and not a soul has concerned themselves with us. We live as freely as if we were native-born Americans.”Footnote ¹⁷ He even hinted at that early date of his desire to settle there, believing he could easily earn a living as a parlor artist. This enthusiasm for the promise of liberty and prosperity would not be shared by his fellow traveler and supervisor on the journey.

Märter's image of America complemented what his Austrian readers expected, but also emphasized a contrast with Europe that intended to make his readers reflect on the varying degree of nature and civilization. While he depicted America's natural abundance as incontestably richer, Central Europe became implicitly the center of a civilized, modern life in contrast to an unformed, fledgling U.S. government and society without culture or convenience. This dichotomy did not, however, present a clear or simplistic case of inferiority and superiority. Märter swooned over the natural sights he encountered even when critiquing slavery, anti-intellectualism, and the instability of the post-revolutionary United States. Yet ultimately, Märter reflected on America through his writings as a means to explore improvement of Europe's flawed agricultural, economic, or social practices.

The five Central European travelers first caught sight of America on 8 September 1783 as they entered the Delaware River bay that would lead them to Philadelphia. The first paragraphs of Märter's travelogue depicted nature's effusive beauty hitting all their senses, and contrasting markedly with the monotony, danger, and deprivation of their time aboard ship. This section revealed the lens through which Märter would view America: its natural world demanded praise; its human contributions remained unappreciated. Märter wrote: “There can hardly be a more romantic scene imagined than what we had before our eyes this afternoon: the white beach of the river that disappeared further back into the land in a dark wood, the softly rolling hills, and the cohesive unity of the occasional farmhouses of the earliest European settlers of America; the little water crafts (canoes) circling everywhere gave us the happiest impression of the world before us, where nature with so little human aid knows how to display itself so well.”Footnote ¹⁸ He romanticized geographic features and depicted what was man-made as extensions of North America's physical setting. His praise for houses and land use emphasized how these interventions blended and even disappeared into gentle hills while canoes moved on the surface of the water like eddies. No boatmen or merchants appeared, though natural plenty did. Märter presented a self-sufficient and proliferating ecosystem in his prose reconstructions of the natural New World. Anchoring, the captain went ashore and returned with an abundance of fresh fruits, overwhelming taste buds that had been subsisting on ship's fare. Märter depicted the company eating these ripe fruits unadulterated by plates and cooks and other accoutrements of civilized dining. A cacophony of sound joined the rich tastes, sights, and smells that met the travelers’ senses upon arrival. The wildlife put on a display for the enthusiastic Central Europeans, as Märter described the plentiful fauna on the islands they passed and reported that, “often the sky darkens with leagues of those that the inhabitants call Black birds who give us the most loudly convincing proof of the natural abundance of this land.”Footnote ¹⁹ Through these reports, Märter depicted North America as a pure expression of bounty. This was a land of nature but not of human industry or social advancement. From the first paragraph describing the American landscape, the Austrian emphasized that the botanical riches he witnessed occurred without substantial applied knowledge or extensive labor on the part of its inhabitants.

Natural abundance did not translate into advancement in natural science among the people of America. Märter wrote, “People who possess an identifiable knowledge in natural history, or who because of a true taste from some class of natural rarities began a collection, are here not to be found. Everything that one could discover in the philosophy or history of nature from the people who live amongst such abundant daily evidence of it is grounded mostly in empirical knowledge, and any who have any desire to familiarize themselves with the extensive natural products of this country, can look for them themselves in the original place where the creator established them.”Footnote ²⁰ Märter's descriptions emphasized the lack of intellectual resources in Philadelphia and other American cities, lamenting elsewhere the absence of reference books, experts, and institutions supporting knowledge development. His depictions were not entirely unjustified either, for access to and production of books on natural history or related fields in the former colonies lagged far behind Europe.Footnote ²¹ Of course, Vienna was ten times the size of American cities, so the comparative intellectual cultures could hardly be equivalent. And for Märter, this difference was a central one. The lack of a structure for sharing and producing knowledge meant that the natural bounty remained unimproved.

Yet the relatively rural base of the new nation's population was not entirely detrimental, for the environment did not fail to have its effects. This European-trained botany professor and representative of Continental scientific knowledge romanticized an experiential knowledge and the authority of interested taste and direct exposure to nature. In a separate discussion of American farming practices, Märter explained that while Europeans determined what could be grown by inquiring into soil type, Americans simply asked what trees grew on the land. Formed by their constant exposure to a plentiful natural world, Americans’ understanding of horticulture became intuitive. While less interested in European classification schemes, Americans could rely on an effective practical knowledge. Though painting this experience of nature as idyllic, Märter's text nevertheless exposed a lack of intellectual development among the Americans to his European readership.

Other comparisons between Europe and America arose through Märter's observations of American cultivation practices. He reported European plants imported to the New World grew faster and were ready for harvest earlier because of their happier summers. Other things the Americans had great luck with included watermelon, nuts, peach trees that could grow 1,000 fruits on one tree, and an “astounding amount” of apples used for the brewing of cider. Yet the productivity that so astounded Märter came without the hard work and knowledge of fertilization European farmers relied on. Virginians, he claimed, planted tobacco and corn in some places for sixty years without break. Of Pennsylvania, he wrote that because the land was new, it could be fruitful for many years in a row. Once the soil was depleted, farmers did not use artificial improvements but instead left those fields fallow. Indeed, Märter exclaimed, he never saw a single manure pile in that whole state. The careless waste of land and animal dung invoked a proverbial land of plenty to the intensive agriculturalists of Europe. In the same journal in which Märter published his travelogue, a contemporary natural scientist promoted mineral-based soil additives in addition to organic fertilizers for Austrian farmers, so the simplicity of American practices provided a stark contrast for readers.Footnote ²²

The abundance of foodstuffs in the Americas appeared through Märter's prose as purely a result of the land, and not the industry of those cultivating it. His discussion of livestock introduced from Europe reflected this view bluntly:

To show the pathetic stock resulted purely from poor raising practices rather than environment, he contrasted it with a description of a Quaker plantation, where the agricultural practices and thus the livestock competed with those in Holland and Switzerland. The travelogue thus suggested human society in America inhibited its natural promise. Though a botanist, Märter's membership in the “Lower Austrian Economic Society” embedded him in discussions of the comparative success of different regions in livestock cultivation. Austria's own cultivation practices fell behind the two named nations, a problem that the members of the society sought to rectify. Beyond applied Austrian interests, this section engaged in a broader theoretical debate among natural scientists. Märter combatted a commonplace prejudice of American degeneracy that his contemporary French naturalist, Georges Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon, perpetuated through his popular and expansive Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière. While Americans like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson sought to repudiate the idea that Americans and their animals were smaller and weaker than Europeans (at times through their own physical stature or with shipments of very large animal carcasses), Märter focused on the Frenchman's fallacies in connection with livestock.Footnote ²⁴ Another section described undomesticated animal life, and depicted once again a view of nature in America as vibrant and peacefully proliferating: Bountiful herbivores of the forests met only occasional predators such as small bears, wolves, and the cougars that he assured stayed far from dwellings. Presenting another contrast to Buffon's judgments of American animals, Märter even claimed that the overflowing wildlife was proof of the mild temperament of animals of prey, suggesting nature on the east coast of North America was of high moral character.

The ample natural resources available in America, according to Märter, provided potential prosperity for those capable and interested in developing it. He described a large surface coal deposit near Richmond, Virginia, that was so readily accessible that pulling it up and using it was easier than burning wood, despite the abundance of forests. Rich in fuel, the newly independent states also had barely tapped mineral wealth. Earlier, he described the pure white clay on a riverbed a couple miles outside of Philadelphia, where a French man was setting up a porcelain factory. Noting throughout his travel reports such mineralogical wealth ripe for easy exploitation, Märter wrote of the availability of limestone, beautiful large quartzes, and the “so-called Pennsylvania marble,” used for tables, hearths, and gravestones. After traveling northwest of the former capital to check out a few iron pits, he authoritatively asserted that iron deposits were so widespread that they left reddish-brown traces on all surface soil. He described one hill where not far below the surface was a high-quality yellowish-red iron ore that just a few workers in a short time had extracted in large quantity and sent to be smelted in ovens a few miles away. In both iron and porcelain manufacturing, Märter described easy exploitation; American processing of natural material took place in the immediate vicinity of natural deposits that required very little labor to extract.

By broadcasting economic developments and opportunities between lines about soil composition and mineralogy, Märter engaged his readers in a fantasy of a distant land of easy and untapped wealth. Many of these descriptions came in a report Märter sent back to Vienna that focused exclusively on “Mineralogical Remarks.” Though Märter was a professor of botany and economics, he was keenly aware that he was appointed director of the imperial voyage through the advocacy of Ignaz von Born. He had been recommended alongside another Born protégé who was a mineralogist by profession, but who had to drop out of the expedition when the initial plans for departure fell through, delaying its start date. Born's desire to have the voyage engage in overseas mineralogical exploration and observation placed pressure on Märter to fulfill that role in addition to his work in collecting and botanical observations.Footnote ²⁵ Though much of the travelogue stuck to Märter's script of America as a land of nature and not human industry, he still sought to provide Born and his readers with observations that could be useful. Coming into Virginia, the biggest state in the U.S., he came across an iron foundry four miles from Fredericksburg that made everything from nails to anchors. Märter described their anvil-free production process, thereby sending important technological knowledge back to the Habsburg monarchy.Footnote ²⁶ The loss of the expert in geological knowledge affected the sense among scientists that the travelers could, through their observations, improve the economic standing of the monarchy. Märter hoped to alleviate those concerns when possible while also meeting the scientific journal's contributors’ and readers’ absorption with thinking about natural resources and comparative state success in exploiting them for the economic advancement of the population.

Despite hints at the industry surrounding mineralogical resources, the wealth of resources was located for the most part in a land with the most rudimentary of economies, as most prominently displayed in Märter's descriptions of the trade in tobacco. Southerners brought tobacco in hogshead barrels to warehouses that inspected, weighed, and determined their worth. Payment came in the form of a receipt, “that can then serve him in shopping instead of currency, since practically everything here is valued in comparison to its weight in tobacco.”Footnote ²⁷ Märter further explained the same process applied to other agricultural products. The monetary situation of the new state was characterized by varied sources of currency, inadequate public confidence in them, and scarcity.Footnote ²⁸ The lack of basic currency suggested to Europeans extreme hindrances to trade. Virginians also failed to make the most of their waterways for trade. Märter wrote, “Despite this place [Richmond] being 150 miles away from the sea, substantial, loaded ships can still come within a few miles of the city. Altogether the broad and deep inland flowing navigable rivers, like the Potomac, Rappahannock, James and York Rivers that collectively flow into the Chesapeake Bay, make the trade of Virginia much easier; however because the tax here on the importation of European goods is so much higher than that in Pennsylvania, I happened to see only a few ships of any importance.”Footnote ²⁹ Again, the Austrian botanist's travelogue depicted a perfect natural setting—in this case for transportation and trade—but the American people neglected the opportunities provided by nature. In the Habsburg monarchy, both Maria Theresa's and Joseph II's reigns ushered in river improvement projects that increased the reliability of travel and shipments along the monarchy's rivers.Footnote ³⁰ This section therefore presented to Central European readers a direct contrast between an advanced state using technological advances to solve natural hindrances and a barely functioning one unable to build on natural advantages.

While the economies of the Habsburg monarchy and the United States had many differences—slavery, stable currency vs. a lack of currency, and the size of consumer markets to name some major ones—they nonetheless had a significant basis for comparison. Both countries had economies that were highly regionalized, with different industries, income levels, and widely varying development from one set of territories or states to the next. The per capita gross national product and the barriers to trade were also not too different between the two nations at this point, though that would certainly change in the nineteenth century.Footnote ³¹ Such significant similarities allowed Märter to add to Viennese Enlightenment debates by roundly condemning the American practices that most clearly stood in for the sorts of European practices Märter and his fellow lodge and society members hoped to see rationally reformed. Thus, while the barter system and prohibitive taxation suggested some degree of backward and destructive economic behavior, it was the division of land and labor that Märter most roundly condemned. As he narrated his southward journey, Märter encountered the less populated states where, he informed his readers in densely settled Austrian territories, one could ride half a day without seeing anyone. But the practices in the division of land kept Virginia much less developed than Märter felt it should be. In a section where Märter diverged significantly from raving over natural sights or providing unimpassioned descriptions of industry, the convinced follower of Enlightenment condemned slaveholding and plantation-based economies. He wrote:

The problems of overworked slaves and an underworked elite revealed a perversion of human nature and society. As an intellectual educated and working in a region where cameralist theories predominated, Märter's view of the economic ramifications of slavery differed markedly from most American and British writings on both the pro-slavery and abolitionist sides. The political and economic theories of cameralism advocated commonly in Central Europe argued for the need to support educational and economic development for all subjects. If the population as a whole and its productivity was the source of wealth, which cameralists generally believed, states should invest in the population to give every subject the education, necessary liberties, and motivation to pursue their economic betterment. Slavery—and serfdom for that matter—inhibited economic development when viewed through this set of ideas. Märter's fellow freemason and prominent state scientist in Vienna Joseph von Sonnenfels wrote extensively that empowering small-scale producers and allowing smaller landholding practices would result in more widespread and sustainable economic growth.Footnote ³³ The monarchy had been embroiled in long considerations of the relationship between freedom, ownership, and productive labor. Reforms in the previous decade sought to increase the number of small peasant landowners and, more controversially, abolish the restrictions placed on serfs so they could move, marry, and work as they saw fit.Footnote ³⁴ While large landowners protested this move, these imperial patents earned much praise among the circles Märter was involved with. Especially in the “Economic Society,” Märter would have imbibed the views of agrarian reformers on how the fault for low yields from even the free peasantry resulted from the situations in which they lived and worked rather than any innate or cultural problems among them.Footnote ³⁵ Märter's critique of American slavery was thus drenched in the debates on forced labor in the eastern territories of the Habsburg monarchy and improving agriculture in its western territories.

America's slaveholding society was also tainted in Märter's view by the history of early European colonizers. In a later passage of critical commentary that rivaled his description of slaveholding economies in its tone and deviation from the narrative's general conventions, the botany professor presented his interpretation of Columbus's encounter with native people in the West Indies. He described Cat Island in the Bahamas as

All that remained to commemorate them, Märter claimed, were the archaeological remains of their civilizations. Such a harsh condemnation of earlier Catholic Europeans is surprising, considering the historical connections between Spain and the Austrian Habsburgs and Austria's own strongly Counter-Reformation Catholic culture. Yet Märter's view of Indians incorporated a sense that European abuse corrupted a naturally hardworking and moral population. The Americas before European settlement were thus not only naturally abundant, but had societies that were closer to nature and more virtuous. Only with the Revolutionary War, and especially after the Treaty of Paris, did discussions of the peoples in North America who were descended from Europeans and Africans begin to supersede German-speaking cultural interest in the Native Americans. When people read in the German press about America before 1776, then, they were most often reading about Indians.Footnote ³⁷ Similarly, the imagery evoking North America on allegorical paintings on Catholic and Habsburg buildings’ ceilings and walls depicted the European imagination of Native Americans, though the images’ resemblances to American Indians were far from passing. Nevertheless, the widespread use of these allegories instilled familiarity; Austrians believed they knew America because they saw her dark skin and natural clothing everywhere.Footnote ³⁸ In including some mention of native populations and their history, Märter not only spoke to broader Enlightenment ideas, such as the popular trope of the noble savage, he also spoke to the knowledge base of the residents of the Habsburg monarchy. But he also linked this content to the debates on religious abuses in Vienna. As Märter readied for his American voyage, Vienna experienced a pamphlet-publishing boom that focused intensively on the problems of historical Catholicism for the monarchy and the need for radical reform of the Church's practices there.Footnote ³⁹ The abuses of the monastic system and the ways in which superstitious or other practices limited the economic productivity and intellectual advancement of the population were popular themes in these pamphlets; Märter's discussion of the corruption of work and morals brought about by Spanish Catholic abuses in previous centuries reflected some of those immediate Austrian concerns, but he avoided direct critique of contemporary Catholicism given his status as a representative of the monarchy while on the voyage.

Märter traced the flaws in American civilization to Columbus, when European culture first came to affect the New World. Yet it is in his description of the forms of contemporary American civilization that one can best see how he categorizes the two continents as opposites. In the travelogue's coverage of cities, his descriptions tend toward the bucolic. He described Philadelphia as one of the prettiest and biggest cities of this part of the world, formed by the natural geography of its two rivers. Beyond its natural setting, he also complimented the artificial form with a layout “built after the excellent plan of its founders with true regularity in an oblong rectangle.”Footnote ⁴⁰ The houses, he reported to Vienna, were one or two stories and built of stone. Residences predominated, as he claimed there was not much noteworthy in terms of public buildings. After this description of the capital, with its emphasis on small-scale planning, small-scale housing, and minimal conveniences and entertainments, he wrote that other cities in the United States were much smaller, but similarly well-built. Williamsburg, he described as quaint, with its couple hundred one-story wooden houses. While he emphasized its “pleasant setting” with “the prettiest prospect,” Viennese readers might snicker at the contrasting images of their dense, palace-ridden capital with a population of 200,000 and that distant outpost of collected huts, even if it did incorporate a former assembly house and a university with fifty students.Footnote ⁴¹ Still, the regularity of the new American planned streets evoked envy for anyone who had to negotiate the crowded inner city of Vienna and its medieval layout. Such measured compliments of North American cities were nevertheless high praise compared to Märter's assessments of U.S. government and culture.

As he traveled through the States from 1783 into 1784, Märter inserted many reminders of the recent war and resultant instability as when he wrote of agriculture having been abandoned and only in the process of rejuvenation. He wrote of those still affected by the divisiveness of war and emphasized a lack of unity among the states. In Vienna, the newspapers had kept readers informed of the course of the war, the settlement of the peace, and the economic consequences and opportunities produced through the turmoil. Märter's reports thus sought to provide a more detailed, and often more negative, context through direct observation than the brief reports of the periodical press. In contrast to the several factories he documented in the north, Märter asserted that the entire south had but one manufacturer. He further insisted that the wealth of Pennsylvania evoked jealousy from all the other states and suggested that its large number of tradespeople and its population of 40,000 from varying national and religious groups set it far above the others’ demographics. Such extreme regional variance and internal diversity was familiar to Habsburg subjects. This lack of unity among the United States was minor however compared to the lack of government. Claiming the political system was a huge confusing mess that did not seem to be resolvable anytime soon, he wrote: “It must only result in universal Ferment, so that the useless, proliferating governing bodies are beaten down, the whole thing washed clean, and in its place can be established an enlightened, stable, and uniform entity.”Footnote ⁴² Having been influenced by enlightened ideals in Vienna, Märter could only feel disappointment that a newly established world government did not embody reason. Whereas America's establishment of the first large-scale democracy in hindsight has been viewed as a fulfillment of Enlightenment ideals, many of Märter's contemporaries and associates in the freemasonic lodge in Vienna saw the Habsburg government instead as the ideal form to effectively pursue progress. The Illuminati members of his lodge advocated for the use of the bureaucracy of an absolutist state as the platform to reform government, the economy, and society.Footnote ⁴³ Such an organized state contrasted starkly with the emergent forms of government in America.

In any event, Märter did not await political advancement from the United States, for his view of the manners and culture of this new country precluded political liberties and stability.

While the culture of these barbarians determined their abuses against humanity, this only accounted for half of the population. Critiquing American women as well, Märter reported, “As degenerate and even frequently unclean the clothing that the men of means go around in is, one should not assume that the apparel of ladies here far outshines the attire of those in Europe.”Footnote ⁴⁵ He also chastised other groups for their behavior, but in the case of German-speakers he was not as hopeless about the results. The indentured servants from the Holy Roman lands who were working off their terms in Philadelphia, “as slaves” in Märter's terms, certainly had raw manners. Märter also reported that, “one can expect from them the greatest ignorance in everything that belongs to contemporary Enlightenment.”Footnote ⁴⁶ But he commended their thrift and farming abilities, which he wrote promised much for the future of the land and its wealth. Potential in America could be had when the Germanic settlers applied their skills to cultivate and conserve the natural abundance of this territory otherwise impeded by its own civilization. Both the United States and the Habsburg monarchy had multilingual, multiethnic populations. Whereas the German-speaking populations in Central Europe claimed cultural advancement over the other groups within the monarchy, the uncultured German populations in America challenged some assumptions current in Vienna. Crassness and lack of culture were nonetheless the things most “foreign and offensive” in all his observations of America, and thus not a topic suited for exploring implicit critiques of Central Europeans.

A line in a poem by Märter's contemporary and fellow freemason Johann Baptist von Alxinger went: “They hear you tell of such things as if it were from America.” As referring to something as American evoked an idea of novelty and strangeness in eighteenth-century Vienna, the expedition members were predisposed to view the newly independent States as alien. The capital of the Habsburg monarchy and Holy Roman Empire was a large, cosmopolitan city; but as the monarchy had no colonial interests in the Americas, limited cultural exposure to those regions came mostly from text- and image-based sources of European provenance. Märter's observations of America for a mostly Austrian audience therefore had multiple goals. He sought to record observations to inform his readers, and, in the process, dispel unfounded utopian narratives of the new nation and false theories about its natural world. Beyond these desires to add to Central European knowledge of the new United States and its natural setting, Märter aimed to use those observations to develop content on situations and issues that were analogous to ones in the Habsburg monarchy. Though he did not explicitly compare the two contexts, Märter's praise or criticisms of the United States thus held up a critical mirror for his readers.

In Märter's narrative, the common ground between the two nations, both multiethnic, multilingual societies with distinct regional divides, allowed the areas where he emphasized contrasts between the United States and the Habsburg monarchy to stand out all the more. Yet even in Märter's descriptions of distinct customs and features of North America, an implicit critical evaluation of Habsburg society and government emerged. His bias toward the German-speaking populations in the monarchy, his condemnation of the old landed elite relying on the labor of the unfree, his concern over intellectuals being too far removed from nature, and conversely the peasantry being too far removed from the knowledge developing among naturalists could all be expressed in scientific writings that purported to be pure observation of unskewed reality. But the sum of these critiques for Märter did not amount to a total condemnation of his Central European home. Criticizing the condition of the peasantry, the state of the sciences, and the problems of diverse populations and old hierarchies amounted to an expression of loyalty to his state. In gently pointing to the problems within the old world through the lens of the new, Märter hoped to further his service to his society and state. The patronage of the king, in sending him around the world to witness the diversity of nature, ensured that loyalty. Support from intellectual circles and acknowledged leaders in natural history cemented his sense of place within the capital. Märter's personal development as an intellectual stimulated his most ardent criticisms of the United States and resulting subtext of pride in the monarchy.

Though some of Märter's topics and assessments seem ideologically at odds with one another, the most consistent strain was his satisfaction with the social and intellectual milieus of the Enlightenment in Europe. Living in a time of and being accepted into intellectual associations as an equal, having opportunities to publish his scientific contributions, immersing himself in the Republic of Letters and the excitement of the rapid advancements in natural history shared there, and being a part of a state that supported scientific work in key ways all provided more value to Märter than abstract ideals of freedom and economic opportunity for all. While his fellow traveler, the painter, bought into the romance of the fresh-start nation and its freedoms, Märter believed opportunity came through enlightened society and absolutist state institutions. Märter's recorded observations revealed some agreement with Moll's ideals—both recognized the importance of opportunity for work and explained inequality and the corresponding lack of opportunities by the stagnancy and economic hindrances of old and entrenched hierarchies—but ultimately he remained loyal to his identity as an imperial subject and Viennese intellectual. The costs of nature—from the incivility of American politics, the anti-intellectualism of its culture, the extreme inequality of its society, the crudeness of its elite, their abuses against the laborers upon whom they placed all the burdens of work and none of its rewards, and all the minor to major hindrances to a population living with a barely functioning central government—were simply too much.