ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the way in which travel offered various forms of education and personal development for servants. Learning a language allowed him to feel superior to both the other servants and his employer, in spite of Sir John’s previous education. As the travels of John Macdonald and William Fletcher have shown, encounters with locals often afforded servants opportunities to learn foreign languages. Their proximity to native speakers in and beyond the context of their work meant that servants frequently acquired some knowledge of other languages on their travels. Fletcher also seems to have made some effort to learn foreign languages, which, as in Macdonald’s case, developed from his relationships with locals, and then enabled greater intimacy. Macdonald’s awareness of his own knowledge of travel is frequently displayed from his first tours around Britain and Ireland in the early 1760s with Major Joass, who had taught Macdonald about geography during their travels.
