A descendant of one of the oldest families of Lithuania and Samogitia, he took a special interest in the development of the industry and commerce of Poland and Lithuania, and to this end considered it of the utmost importance to utilize the energy and the abilities of the Jewish inhabitants.
In 1789 he elaborated a plan for transforming the Jews into useful citizens, which he set forth in a pamphlet entitled Sposób Uformowania Zydów Polskich w Pozytecznych Krajowi Obywatelow (Warsaw), and which he submitted to King Stanislaus Poniatowsky at the session of the Diet of December 4, asking the king to favor it with his support. He adds:
When the Sejm appointed, in June, 1790, a committee "to reform the condition of the Jews," Butrymowicz was one of its most active members.
In this pamphlet he points out that the Polish law did not include the Jews in the three estates of the realm (the nobility, country gentry, and burgesses). That the Polish legislation had always regarded the Jews as a foreign element, and, though burdening them with exceptional taxes, had not granted them the rights of citizens, while (he argues) Polish society had treated them with contempt, defamed their religion, and would not tolerate the notion that a Jew could be a son of his fatherland.
Together with Castellan Yezierski and other Liberal members of the "last" Polish Sejm, he endeavored to prove to the Polish representatives how harmful to the welfare of the country was the abnormal position of the Jews, and urged the taking of measures leading toward their emancipation.
