His detailed descriptions of the France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands of the time provide a rich source for historians of the situation in the second half of the 18th century.
To that end belongs a 1751 publication of the translation of "Principes du droit politique" by the Swiss jurist of Geneva, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (1694–1748) into English ("Principles of Politic Law", 1752).
in the year 1756 followed a translation of Etienne Bonnot de Condillac's "Essai über den Ursprung der menschlichen Erkenntnisse" ("Essay on the origin of Human Knowledge").
This work (original title: Travels through Germany: containing observations on customs, manners, religion, government, commerce, arts, and antiquities: with a particular account of the Courts of Mecklenburg in a series of letters to a friend) was written, amongst others, at Hamburg, Lübeck and several cities and villages in the then Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, including Schwerin, Rostock, Wismar, Ludwigslust, Doberan, Güstrow, Bützow, Waren, Neustrelitz, Mirow and Neubrandenburg.
This book, in which among other things the Lübeck Dance of Death [Totentanz] is described, made Nugent famous in Germany and was largely abridged in 1938, as well as appearing in new annotated editions in 1998 and 2000.