Johnston, an Oxford graduate, journeyed to Russia in 1814, reaching St Petersburg in July. His preface begins rather pompously on the political state of Europe and the liberating light of Russia: ‘the flames of Moscow have burst a new light on man; the falling towers of the Kremlin have chimed the tyrant’s parting knell, and proclaimed aloud, that Europe is free!’ His work claimed to come from his own impressions, and he certainly offers detailed accounts of the towns and cities he travelled through. His arrival in Moscow not two years after Napoleon’s siege led him to describe the devastation:

Here was to be seen every thing costly and magnificent; the grand mart of European and Asiatic splendour, the pride and envy of the northern world.

This is the spot we now gazed on; what a change! Lowly and prostrate it now lies, its crumbling towers, falling into decay, its proud banners torn from their burning walls, and scattering their shivered fragments to the hollow winds – its temples torn – its gates demolished – its houses ransacked – its streets laid waste.

The site of the battle of Borodino similarly affected him: ‘Nothing but the sad remnants of its desolation now remain; the whole is almost a desert’.