Surviving family accounts (supported by Polish literature)[citation needed] suggest that, most probably, he was a double agent who tried to provoke a major conflict between the British and Russian Empire in Central Asia to weaken the latter decisively and thus give his native country a chance to regain sovereignty.

His father, Wiktoryn Witkiewicz, was the vice-marshal of the Šiauliai County appointed by Napoleon during the French invasion of Russia,[7][8] and his mother was Justyna Aniela née Mikucka.

Students initiated the movement to fight the Russian occupation and distributed banned books, supported anti-Russian sentiments and wrote independence-oriented manifestos.

However, in 1823, the Black Brothers movement was exposed after they began posting revolutionary slogans and verses on prominent public buildings, and started sending anti-Tsarist letters, poems and patriotic appeals to the principal and students of the Vilnius University.

In an attempt to prevent any potential uprisings among other students, three of them were sentenced to death by the Russian authorities, and the remaining three were to be flogged and then exiled to Southern Ural.

[9] In a fortunate course of events and thanks to the involvement of the Konstantin Pavlovich, Grand Duke of Russia, the de facto viceroy of the Congress Poland, the death sentences were changed with life imprisonment with hard labour in the Babruysk fortress.

[9] Deprived of his nobility and forbidden all further contact with his family for ten years, Witkiewicz was later taken to serve as a common soldier at the Orsk fortress by the Ural River overlooking the Kazakh steppe.

[9] The poet Adam Mickiewicz retells in his poem Dziady how the Black Brothers from Kražiai were the first among the Polish-Lithuanian youth to be prosecuted in the Russian Empire.

Biedne chłopcy — najmłodszy, dziesięć lat, niebożę, Skarżył się, że łańcucha podźwignąć nie może; I pokazywał nogę skrwawioną i nagą.

Ten przed rokiem swawolny, ładny chłopczyk mały, Dziś poglądał z kibitki, jak z odludnej skały Ów Cesarz!

— okiem dumnym, suchym i pogodnym; To zdawał się pocieszać spólników niewoli, To lud żegnał uśmiechem, gorzkim, lecz łagodnym, Jak gdyby im chciał mówić: nie bardzo mię boli.

— A wtem zacięto konia, — kibitka runęła — On zdjął z głowy kapelusz, wstał i głos natężył, I trzykroć krzyknął: «Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła».

— [...] I zostaną w mej myśli, — i w drodze żywota Jak kompas pokażą mi, powiodą, gdzie cnota: Jeśli zapomnę o nich, Ty, Boże na niebie, Zapomnij o mnie.

Last year a small boy frolicsome and fair, Now like that Emperor, with sombre air, Yet dry, serene, from Saint Helena's cliff, So looks he from his gaol-cart, proud and stiff.

In November 1835, he joined a caravan at Orsk and in January 1836 reached Bukhara where he collected political intelligence and discussed trade and diplomacy with the Emir's officials.

[4] Speaking in Turcoman, he claimed to be carrying gifts from the Tsar Nicholas I to the Shah Mohammad Qajar who at this time was marching east to capture Herat.

[4] Burnes described Witkiewicz: He was a gentlemanly and agreeable man, of about thirty years of age, spoke French, Turkish and Persian fluently, and wore the uniform of an officer of the Cossacks.

[13] There is also an explanation that he committed suicide after a visit from an old Polish friend the same day, in which he was severely criticized for having been a traitor to the ideals of his youth (independence from Russia) and for his service in the ranks of his country's Russian enemy.