Publisher's Synopsis
In 1792 the Earl of Macartney was appointed by William Pitt to undertake an embassy to China, with the purpose of opening up trade, establishing an ambassador in Peking and to sign treaties of friendship with the Chinese emperor. Macartney set out from Spithead with 800 men, diplomats, soldiers, botanists, artists and servants, on a two-year journey which was to end in one of the greatest diplomatic putdowns in history because neither side understood the other. This book uses surviving diaries and records on both the Chinese and the English sides to tell this story, describing the Chinese landscape and people as they appeared to the astonished English visitors.
