Journal of the Proceedings of the late Embassy to China; comprising a correct Narrative of the public transactions of the Embassy of the Voyage to and from China and of the Journey from the mouth of the Pei-Ho to the return to Canton.

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

Interspersed with Observations upon the face of the country the polity moral character and manners of the Chinese Nation. ...London: John Murray 1817. Quarto bound in original full diced calf (skilfully re-backed with the original spine laid down) with morocco title-labels to spine. (viii 526 2pp.) With engraved portrait of Lord Amherst; 3 engraved maps 1 of which is folding; 7 full-page hand-coloured aquatint plates (the original hand-colouring remains fine and sharp). An old rubber stamp has been excised from the verso of the title-page; this is otherwise a fine copy of the first edition complete with the errata-leaf at end. Sir Henry Ellis (1788-1855) noted diplomat served as third commissioner on Earl Amherst's embassy to the court of the Chinese Emperor in 1816. The embassy was dispatched by King George III to negotiate new trading conditions following a series of altercations between foreign merchant seamen and local Chinese authorities at Canton. The mission was ill-fated as Earl Amherst like Lord Macartney before him refused to kowtow to the emperor. On the return journey the embassy was wrecked in the Gaspar Straits whereupon they proceeded to Batavia by barge. Ellis' Journal is notable because as Ellis points out in the advertisement "[a]n Embassy to China is so rare an event in the History of Europe that a correct narrative of the occurrences attending it possess a degree of interest?" (p. iii) Of greater interest perhaps is Ellis' account of his meeting with Napoleon Bonaparte on St. Helena (recounted in chapter VIII) the party's final port of call before reaching Spithead.