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STAUNTON, George.
An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China …
with notices of several places where they stopped in their way out and home … Taken chiefly from the papers of … the Earl of Maccartney … Sir Erasmus Gower … and of the gentlemen in the several departments of the Embassy.
First edition of the official account of the first official British Embassy to China, headed by George, Earl Macartney. Macartney was dispatched to Peking in 1792, travelling via Madeira, Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of Good Hope and Indonesia. He was accompanied by Staunton, and a retinue of suitably impressive size, including Staunton's 11-year-old son, who was nominally Macartney's page. It emerged on arrival that the boy was only one who had bothered to learn Chinese, and was therefore the only one able to converse with the Emperor during the Ambassador's two audiences. The Embassy "sought to improve commercial relations with China, through Canton (Guangzhou), and to establish regular diplomatic relations between the two countries. Though Macartney and Staunton had an audience with the emperor their proposals were rebuffed In China [Staunton] closely observed and noted all that he saw, and during expeditions he was able to collect botanical specimens" (ODNB). The party returned via Macao and St. Helena, arriving back in 1794. Young George Thomas Staunton became a writer at the HEIC's Canton factory in 1798, advancing to supercargo in 1804 and chief interpreter in 1808, and in 1816 he accompanied Amherst's ill-fated embassy to Peking as chief of the Canton factory. Hill considers this a "remarkable account of Chinese manners and customs a the close of the eighteenth century", and draws attention to the descriptions of the places visited en route, which are "also of considerable interest", and the "important" atlas. Bookplate to the atlas of Robert William Duff, 2nd of Fetteresso, those of his grandson Thomas Fraser Duff to the text volumes. The elder Duff was described in a report on the voters of Angus and Kincardine as "a young man, a lawyer, doesn't not practise, a near connection of Lord Fife."
3 volumes, 2 text volumes in quarto (305 × 233 mm) and large folio atlas (602 × 440 mm). Uncut in original marbled boards, rebacked and recornered in lightly sprinkled calf, vermilion morocco labels, spine compartments formed by gilt milled rolls, gilt roundel to the first, third, fifth, and sixth, volume number gilt to the spine within a laurel wreath to the fourth. Text volumes with engraved portrait frontispiece to each, 1 plate and 26 vignettes after William Alexander et al. in all, the text leaves with vignettes are of an entirely different paper-stock to the rest of the text-leaves, having a finer and more polished surface to take a crisper impression; atlas with 44 engraved views, plans, plates and maps and charts, including large folding world map, 3 natural history subjects and 25 views. An most attractive set, the text wide-margined and clean, some light, largely marginal damping in the atlas, the whole bound retaining the original marbled boards.
