The Macartney Embassy (), also called the Macartney Mission, was the first British diplomatic mission to China, which took place in 1793. It is named for its leader, Viscount Macartney, Great Britain's first envoy to China. The goals of the mission included the opening of new ports for British trade in China, the establishment of a permanent embassy in Beijing, the cession of a small island for British use along China's coast, and the relaxation of trade restrictions on British merchants in Guangzhou (Canton). Macartney's delegation met with the Qianlong Emperor, who rejected all of the mission's requests. Although the mission failed to achieve its official objectives, it was later noted for the extensive cultural, political, and geographical observations its participants recorded in China and brought back to Europe. It came to light in 1796 that a Chinese court official, Heshen, was embezzling state funds and had frustrated the mission.
Background
Foreign maritime trade in China was regulated through the Canton System, which emerged gradually through a series of imperial edicts in the 17th and 18th centuries. This system channeled formal trade through the Cohong, a guild of thirteen trading companies (known in Cantonese as "hong") selected by the imperial government. In 1725, the Yongzheng Emperor gave the Cohong legal responsibility over commerce in Guangzhou. By the 18th century, Guangzhou, known as Canton to British merchants at the time, had become the most active port in the China trade, thanks partly to its convenient access to the Pearl River Delta. In 1757, the Qianlong Emperor confined all foreign maritime trade to Guangzhou. Qianlong, who ruled the Qing dynasty at its zenith, was wary of the transformations of Chinese society that might result from unrestricted foreign access. Chinese subjects were not permitted to teach the Chinese language to foreigners, and European traders were forbidden to bring women into China.
By the late 18th century, British traders felt confined by the Canton System and, in an attempt to gain greater trade rights, they lobbied for an embassy to go before the emperor and request changes to the current arrangements. The need for an embassy was partly due to the growing trade imbalance between China and Great Britain, driven largely by the British demand for tea, as well as other Chinese products like porcelain and silk. The East India Company, whose trade monopoly in the East encompassed the tea trade, was obliged by the Qing government to pay for Chinese tea with silver. To address the trade deficit, efforts were made to find British products that could be sold to the Chinese.
At the time of Macartney's mission to China, the East India Company was beginning to grow opium in India to sell in China. The company made a concerted effort starting in the 1780s to finance the tea trade with opium. Macartney, who had served in India as Governor of Madras (present-day Chennai), was ambivalent about selling the drug to the Chinese, preferring to substitute "rice or any better production in its place". An official embassy would provide an opportunity to introduce new British products to the Chinese market, which the East India Company had been criticised for failing to do.
In 1787, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and East India Company official Henry Dundas dispatched Colonel Charles Cathcart to serve as Britain's first ambassador to China. Cathcart became ill during the voyage, however, and died just before his ship, HMS Vestal, reached China. After the failure of the Cathcart Embassy, Macartney proposed that another attempt be made under his friend Sir George Staunton. Dundas, who had become Home Secretary, suggested in 1791 that Macartney himself take up the mission instead. Macartney accepted on the condition that he would be made an earl, and given the authority to choose his companions.
Preparations
Macartney chose George Staunton as his right-hand man, whom he entrusted to continue the mission should Macartney himself prove unable to do so. Staunton brought along his son, Thomas, who served the mission as a page. John Barrow (later Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet) served as the embassy's comptroller. Joining the mission were two doctors (Hugh Gillan and William Scott), two secretaries, three attachés, and a military escort. Artists William Alexander and Thomas Hickey would produce drawings and paintings of the mission's events. A group of scientists also accompanied the embassy, led by James Dinwiddie.
It was difficult for Macartney to find anyone in Britain who could speak Chinese because it was illegal for Chinese people to teach foreigners. Chinese who taught foreigners their language risked death, as was the case with the teacher of James Flint, a merchant who broke protocol by complaining directly to Qianlong about corrupt officials in Canton. Macartney did not want to rely on native interpreters, as was the custom in Canton. The mission brought along four Chinese Catholic priests as interpreters. Two were from the Collegium Sinicum in Naples, where George Staunton had recruited them: Paolo Cho () and Jacobus Li (; ). They were familiar with Latin, but not English. The other two were priests at the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide, which trained Chinese boys brought home by missionaries in Christianity. The two wanted to return home to China, to whom Staunton offered free passage to Macau. reports that they had recently completed their studies at the "Chinese College", and that Staunton had found them with the assistance of Cardinal Antonelli of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The 100-member delegation also included scholars and valets.
Among those who had called for a mission to China was Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, President of the Royal Society. Banks had been the botanist on board HMS Endeavour for the first voyage of Captain James Cook, as well as the driving force behind the 1787 expedition of HMS Bounty to Tahiti. Banks, who had been growing tea plants privately since 1780, had ambitions to gather valuable plants from all over the world to be studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the newly established Calcutta Botanical Garden in Bengal. Above all, he wanted to grow tea in Bengal or Assam, and address the "immense debt of silver" caused by the tea trade. At this time, botanists were not yet aware that a variety of the tea plant (camellia sinensis var. assamica) was already growing natively in Assam, a fact that Robert Bruce was to discover in 1823. Banks advised the embassy to gather as many plants as possible in their travels, especially tea plants. He also insisted that gardeners and artists be present on the expedition to make observations and illustrations of local flora. Accordingly, David Stronach and John Haxton served as the embassy's botanical gardeners.Henry Dundas laid out his goals for the mission in Macartney's official instructions. More British subjects had been trading in China than any other Europeans. Despite this, the British had no direct contact with the emperor, in contrast to the Portuguese, whose Jesuit missionaries retained permanent positions at the imperial court. Macartney was instructed to negotiate a relaxation of the Canton System, such that British traders could operate in more ports and markets, and to obtain a small island on the Chinese coast from which British merchants could operate under British jurisdiction. He was also to establish a permanent embassy in Beijing so as to create a direct line of communication between the two governments, cutting out the Cantonese merchants who had served as middlemen. Finally, he was to gather intelligence on the Chinese government and society, about which little was known in Europe at the time.
The instructions from Dundas also stipulated that Macartney should establish trade relations with other nations of the East. To that effect, Macartney was given letters of credence to the Emperor of Japan, to be executed after completing his mission to China. The instructions stated that it may be useful for him to visit Japan to establish trade relations, particularly to enable a trade in tea.
Despite the misgivings of the East India Company about the potential downsides of the mission, the company was compelled by the government to fund the effort. Dundas and Macartney prioritised national interests over those of the company, which feared the loss of its monopoly position, and the possibility that the embassy would strain diplomatic relations instead of improving them. By sending a direct representative of the British crown, British politician and later Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville reasoned that the mission would be given greater attention than if it had been sent "only in the name of a trading company".
One of the goals of the embassy was to demonstrate the utility of British science and technology, in hopes of encouraging Chinese purchases of British goods. In keeping with these objectives, the mission was to bring with it a number of gifts including clocks, telescopes, weapons, textiles, and other products of technology. Macartney intended the display of technical prowess to reflect Britain's "national character", one of ingenuity, exploration, and curiosity about the natural world. Nevertheless, Dundas reminded him that the mission was not "a delegation of the Royal Society".
Voyage to China
The delegation departed Portsmouth aboard three ships on 26 September 1792. The ship of the line HMS Lion, under Captain Sir Erasmus Gower, led the mission. Lion was accompanied by the East Indiaman Hindostan of the East India Company under Captain William Mackintosh along with the brig Jackall. A storm soon hit the squadron, forcing it to stop temporarily at Torbay. After making repairs, Lion and Hindostan resumed their voyage without Jackall, which had gone missing in the storm. Fortunately, the gifts to be presented to the Emperor were stored on Lion and Hindostan. Thomas spent the voyage studying Chinese with the mission's interpreters.
The squadron stopped at Madeira in early October, and at the Canary Islands later that same month. On 1 November, they arrived at Porto Praya in Cape Verde. After waiting five days for Jackall, they continued on their journey. The crews of Lion and Hindostan believed that the ship was wrecked, but it actually survived and would reunite with the other ships later. The trade winds off the coast of Africa forced them to sail west all the way to Rio de Janeiro, where they arrived at the end of November. Macartney suffered an attack of gout which lasted a month. As Thomas studied the Chinese language, Macartney learned everything he could about China from the books he had placed in Lions library.
The expedition departed Rio de Janeiro on 17 December and sailed east once more, rounding the Cape of Good Hope on 7 January 1793. They passed Java in February and reached Batavia on 6 March. There, they bought a French brig which they christened Clarence, to replace Jackall. However, Jackall rejoined the squadron at Batavia, after having turned back for repairs after the storm that had struck the ships at the start of their voyage. From 26 May to 16 June, the embassy anchored at Tourane and visited Tây Sơn-ruled Cochinchina where they received gifts from emperor Cảnh Thịnh. On 7 June, the master of the Lion and other seven men were arrested by the locals while attempting to survey the Campella river, they were released a week later.