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The Instructions of the East India Company to Lord Macartney on his Embassy to China and his Reports to the Company, 1792–4. Part III: Later Reports and a Statement of the Cost of the Embassy.1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In a letter which I had the honor of writing to Mr. Dundas Secretary of State in November [9–11th] last, I communicated to him my intention of convoying in the Lion, if necessary, your Ships of this Season to England and in my letter of last month, I gave him my reasons why I suffered the five Ships which I found laden on my arrival at Canton to sail from thence without waiting for the remainder, which tho more in number, were represented as more in need of protection. I am confirmed in my resolution of accompanying the latter, by the accounts received within these few days, of the Enemy having been in force in the straits of Sunda, where one of your Ships the Princess Royal has been captured. As this event must give you some alarm with regard to the safety of your homeward bound Ships now lying here, it will be some satisfaction to you to know that nothing shall prevent me from accompanying them in His Majesty's ship the Lion, whose force will, I trust, be sufficient for their protection.
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References
page 493 note 2 MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 439–440 and xciii, 245–6, of Part 3Google Scholar.
page 493 note 3 Besides the letter of 9–1 lth November, 1793, to Dundas, Lord Macartney wrote two further letters to him, one on 23rd December, 1793, and one on 7th January, 1794. These letters are in MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 393–406 and 443–6, also xeiii, 217–228 and 249–250 of Part 3Google Scholar. The necessity of convoying the Indiamen was of course caused by the outbreak of the war with France.
page 494 note 1 The five ships were allowed to depart without convoy to avoid demurrage charges and because they were heavily armed and probably capable of taking care of themselves. The Princess Royal, Indiaman, was captured off Anger Point, in the Straits of Sunda, between Java and Sumatra, in September, 1793, by three French ships. A small Country ship from India, the Polly, was captured by a French privateer in October (Morse, , Chronicles, ii, 211Google Scholar).
page 494 note 2 Two lists of grievances and requests for privileges were given by Lord Macartney to the new Viceroy, Ch'ang Lin 
, one on 20th November, 1793, the other on 1st January, 1794. The first is printed and the second is summarized in Morse, , Chronicles, ii, 252–4Google Scholar, and an abstract of both are given in Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 357, 362. The originals are found in MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xciii, 229–231, 253–263, of Part 3Google Scholar. The second document in particular is a long and reasoned statement of great importance.
page 494 note 3 The edicts referred to were issued on 2nd and 5th January, 1794, and were for the most part hollow verbiage. The first threatened with direpunishment anyone who molested, plundered, annoyed, abused, or defrauded the English and was especially directed against persons who maintained night boats near the factories and by means of liquor and loose women inveigled foreigners into iniquities. The second prohibited extortion from Europeans by the magistrates, military, or other persons (MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 475–8, 483–6, and 513–14, 517–18Google Scholar).
page 495 note 1 The ordinary procedure was for incoming ships to stop outside Macao, where pilots were obtained to take them on to Whampoa. It does not seem that the Viceroy's promise produced any essential change in procedure.
page 495 note 2 The Viceroy's reply to Macartney's requests admitted abuses an oppressions, promised care and speed in prohibiting them, and promised “that so far as the Laws of China will permit, we shall be peculiarly desirous and ready to settle every thing to your entire Satisfaction”. Nothing further was done (MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 467–8, 509Google Scholar).
page 495 note 3 MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 487–9Google Scholar.
page 496 note 1 Macartney's last official report to Dundas was on 4th September, 1794, and is found in ibid., xciii, 281–5, of Part 3.
page 496 note 2 See supra, page 494, note 1.
page 496 note 3 See supra, page 494, note 2.
page 496 note 4 See supra, page 495, note 2.
page 497 note 1 See supra, page 494, note 3.
page 497 note 2 Prior to this time only two of the Company's servants, James Flint (in China from 1736 to 1762) and Thomas Bevan (in China from 1753 to 1780), had acquired any knowledge of Chinese. In 1792 the Secret and Superintending Committee, after some difficulty because of the prohibition upon the teaching of Chinese to foreigners, obtained a teacher, and three of the writers at the factory, Thomas Charles Pattle, John William Roberts, and John W. Travers began the study (Morse, , Chronicles, ii, 209Google Scholar). None of these men progressed very far in their studies, and the Canton factory had to wait until the arrival in 1800 of George Thomas Staunton, who had begun his study of Chinese while accompanying his father on the Macartney Embassy, before it had a competent interpreter.
page 497 note 3 Macartney here seems to be too optimistic.
page 498 note 1 This letter has been included here, although it is enclosure No. 3 in Macartney's letter of 4th September, 1794, to Henry Dundas, because it relates primarily to the carrying out of instructions given to Lord Macartney by the Company. It is found in MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xciii, 295–8Google Scholar.
page 498 note 2 Sir John Shore succeeded Lord Cornwallis as Governor-General in October, 1793.
page 499 note 1 A complete account of this affair is given in Colonel Kirkpatrick, W., An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, Being the Substance of Observations Made during a Mission in That Country in 1793 (London, 1811), especially the AppendixGoogle Scholar.
page 500 note 1 Macartney was given Credentials to the Emperor of Japan, the King of Cochin China, and blank Credentials to all other kings and princes of the East Indies (MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, viii, No. 329; v, No. 210; and i, miscellaneous unnumbered CredentialsGoogle Scholar).
page 501 note 1 According to W. J. Proudfoot's Biographical Memoir of J. Dinwiddie mentioned in Part II of this paper, Dinwiddie was born 8th December, 1746, and died 19th March, 1815. He received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Edinburgh in January, 1778, and was granted the LL.D. degree by the same institution in 1792. While in India he delivered lectures on experimental philosophy at Calcutta under the patronage of the Governor. Generals, and was for a time employed in practical experimentation by the Board of Trade at Calcutta. He also lectured at Madras and was a teacher of mathematics in the College of Fort William from 1800 until his resignation in 1805. He departed for England in 1806 (see also Catalogue, of the Edinburgh Graduates [Edinburgh, 1858], pp. 213Google Scholar, 259, and Dinwiddie, J., Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Experimental Philosophy [London, 1789])Google Scholar.
page 501 note 2 It appears that the tea plants reached India and were planted in the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta, where other tea plants had been cultivated since 1780. In spite of the apparent interest of the Court of Directors in the commercial cultivation of the tea plant in India, as shown in the letter of instructions to Lord Macartney, “political and commercial objections connected with the company's highly profitable tea trade with China conspired to prevent the carrying out of” any such schemes (Ukers, W. H., All About Tea [New York, 1935], i, 134, 133). This is an interesting point and deserves further investigationGoogle Scholar.
page 502 note 1 For a list of these questions with answers to them see MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, ix, No. 379. The answers relate to the culture of the mulberry tree. No answers relating to the silk-worms were obtained. See also infra, page 507, note 3Google Scholar.
page 502 note 2 Probably Reuben Burrow (1747–1792), an astronomer and mathematician who went to India in 1782 and was appointed to teach mathematics to the Engineers, and on the Survey of Bengal. He was an early member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and contributed eleven papers on Hindu mathematics and astronomy to the Society and to Asiatic Researches (Buckland's Dictionary of Indian Biography).
page 502 note 3 The articles given to Dr. Dinwiddie, valued at £279, included a pile driver, a small steam engine, several silk reeling machines, several pumps, an electrical machine, an artificial eye, some lamps, a theodolite, several microscopes, a camera, a magic lantern, a number of electrical and mathematical instruments, an assortment of chemical supplies, and various other items (MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, x, No. 422Google Scholar).
page 503 note 1 MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, vii, No. 312Google Scholar, and MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xcii, 529–532Google Scholar. William Devaynes became Chairman of the Court of Directors in the spring of 1794. The letter in the Cornell manuscript is unsigned.
page 503 note 2 At Canton on 28th December, 1793, Lord Macartney gave to Henry Browne, Eyles Irwin, and William Jackson a long list of products which he thought could be sold to advantage in North China. The list included bronze figures, agates and bloodstones, Derbyshire globes, green serpentine stones, Gill's sword blades, firelocks, writing paper, girdle buckles, saddles, whip-lashes, knives, forks and spoons, brushes, snuffers, combs, nut-crackers, scissors, pocket knives, files, toys, necklaces and earrings, looking glasses and plate glass, Virginia cloths, fleecy hosiery, and garters. In their proceedings for 3rd February, 1794, the Secret and Superintending Committee recorded that Shy Kinqua and Mowqua, two of the leading Hong Merchants, were sceptical as to the market value of the articles. Shy Kinqua, however, promised to attempt to dispose of small trial shipments by sending them to North China under the direction of one of his men. The Committee therefore recommended that specimens of these articles be sent to China, but expressed the view that such articles were better adapted to Private trade than to the Company's trade (MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, vii, No. 322Google Scholar). Mr. Inglis was presumably a secretary at the India House. The Hong merchant Shy Kinqua mentioned here is the son, Gonqua, of the merchant mentioned in Part I of this article. As business was carried on in his father's name, he too was known as Shih Chung-ho 
, and was proprietor of the Erh-i hang 
. Mowqua became a Hongist in 1792. His official name was Lu Kuan-heng 
, his business name, Lu Mao-kuan 
, and the name of his Hong was Kuang-li 
. See Liang Chia-pin 
, Kuang-tung Shih-san Hang K'ao 
, pp. 216, 218, 284–7, 302–7.
page 507 note 1 Considerable quantities of cloth cuttings were imported in Private trade (Pritchard, op. cit., p. 171).
page 507 note 2 An experimental shipment of Irish linens in 1794–5 was disposed of at invoice cost (£845), and in 1795–6, as a result of Lord Macartney's recommendations, Irish linens invoiced at £589, stationery invoiced at £276, and sword blades valued at £248 arrived at Canton. Mowqua sent the linens to Manila at two-thirds prime cost because there was no market for them in China. Puankhequa sent one case of stationery to Peking as an experiment, but the Chinese merchants in general insisted that it could be used only as presents. No merchant would touch the sword blades because they could be used only as presents, and they were finally sent back to Europe (Morse, , Chronicles, ii, 153, 256, 266–7). Puankhequa was the son of Puankhequa (P'an Wen-yen 
) who died in 1788. He at times may have been known by his father's name, but his official name appears to have been P'an Chih-hsiang 
, his business name, the same as his father's, was P'an Ch'i-kuan 
, and the Hong name was T'ung-wen 
. See Liang Chia-pin, op. cit., pp. 218, 280, 259–273, 286–8Google Scholar.
page 507 note 3 See supra, page 502, note 1. The answers obtained contained the following information: that there were two species of the mulberry tree, one of which bore white, the other black berries, and that the tree bearing white berries was preferable; that the first leaves to sprout were better for the silkworm; that young leaves were given to young worms and mature leaves to full-grown worms; that mulberry trees were planted in the spring; that leaves first appeared in the spring and then two or three times later in the year; that the leaves were sold to persons in the cities who reared the worms; that mulberry trees thrived better on dry soil than did rice; and that no leaves other than those of the mulberry tree were fed to the silkworm (MSS. Cornell, , Macartney Correspondence, ix, No. 379Google Scholar).
page 507 note 4 MSS. Cornell, Macartney Correspondence, Nos. 92, 131, 144, 177, 180, 185, 188, 219, 221, 243–8, 290, 307, 343, 345, 347, 349, 354, 395, 411, 422, 436a, 437, 442; MSS. India Office, China: Macartney Embassy, xci, 543–590Google Scholar, and xcii, 5–6, 9, 15–18, 23–4, 521, and xciii, 48, 219, 264–270, 280, 603–619; Morse, , Chronicles, ii, 205, 216, 223, 255–6; Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 291, 294–5, 303–6; and especially Document No. 1 of this paperGoogle Scholar.