“[This] is not a work presented to, or prepared for the public eye, but merely a series of Notes written during (what was to the Author) a very interesting journey; and now printed solely for private distribution among a few of the Author’s friends, whose curiosity respecting the Embassy, the published narratives of it may not have yet wholly exhausted” (author’s advertisement).
Sir George Thomas Staunton was a British sinologist, politician, and important figure in early Anglo-Chinese relations. Born near Salisbury, England, he was the son of Sir George Leonard Staunton, who served as secretary to Lord Macartney’s first embassy to China. At age 12, Staunton accompanied his father to China, and having learned some Chinese from two Chinese missionaries who his father had found in Naples, he became the only member of the embassy with some fluency in the language and his proficiency earned him the admiration and a personal gift from the Qianlong Emperor.
The embassy, though unsuccessful in securing trade concessions, marked Britain’s second major diplomatic effort to engage with Qing China. Staunton was promoted to chief of the Canton factory in 1816 and accompanied Amherst’s embassy to Peking, which is described in considerable detail in this work.
It is also the only contemporary source which describes the participation of the extraordinary and pioneering Sinologist Thomas Manning (1772–1840) in the embassy: Staunton describes the strong reservations against him on the part of the East India Company due to his eccentricities, but asserts that his knowledge of Chinese outweighed their objections. When they stopped at the city of Anqing on the Yangtze, Manning entered the town and attempted to buy a group of Chinese books. Unfortunately he was prevented from doing so by a man who informed the storeowner that it was illegal to sell Chinese books to foreigners (p. 316ff.).
This book supplies a wealth of detail that is noticeably absent from Abel’s account of the embassy.
Lust 549; Only seven copies in OCLC. Rare. Printed solely for private distribution among the authors friends.
