Ch 16 - The End of Asian Isolation

When Worlds Collide

Great Britain's desire to open China to free trade sent Lord George Macartney on a diplomatic mission to the Qing capital in Beijing. Handicapped by language, cultural ignorance, and a disinterested Manchu government, the British never penetrated China's "tribute mentality" and achieved little beyond a greater appreciation for the complexity of the problem facing the West.

While Choson and Japan held their doors tightly shut to foreign intrusions, China opened a small crack in its Bamboo Curtain, a crack that in time widened to a floodgate. For centuries, the Chinese Empire had very little communication with foreign countries outside customary tribute missions to Beijing. Portuguese, Dutch, British and French merchants had tried to establish commercial relations with China and there was some buying and selling between them, but most of it was less than satisfactory. The Chinese rules that governed such trade were "written on the wind" and seemed to change just as often. Worse, the lives of European merchants, known to the Chinese as "foreign devils," were often in danger.

The apparent impenetrability of China's vast empire both fascinated and frustrated European nations expanding their trade networks in Asia during the 18th century. Great Britain was particularly frustrated since the bulk of its national wealth was tied to the development of world-wide commerce. Until the last decade of the 18th century, British attempts to establish direct contact with the Chinese government only served to increase the myths surrounding the mysterious country and stiffen China's resistance to open trade with the outside world. The need for firm knowledge and direct contact with China had become an imperative.

As the dominant foreign trader with China, England decided to send an ambassador to the Chinese emperor to protest the imperial decree that restricted foreign trade with China to the single port of Canton, to establish safe and reasonable trade relations, and to negotiate a treaty of commerce with China. ;In 1791, the Right Honorable Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for the Home Department, offered Lord George Macartney, one of Britain's foremost diplomats, the post of Ambassador to China. A native of Ireland, Macartney was knighted in 1764, appointed as Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Catherine the Great of Russia, and charged with negotiating a commercial treaty and with sounding out the possibilities of an alliance between Britain an Russia. During his three year stay in St. Petersburg, he managed to conclude a commercial treaty with Russia which was highly favorable to British interests. An ambitious politician with the heart of an imperialist, Macartney gladly accepted the appointment, the first ever offered by the British government.

Preparations for Britain's first diplomatic mission to China got underway in January 1792. Macartney's military escort was hand-picked from among the officers and men of the Royal Infantry and Light Artillery, men whose skills would not only provide a degree of safety but would also, it was hoped, impress the Chinese with Britain's military expertise. Sir George Leonard Staunton was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Lord Macartney and Secretary of the Embassy. Doctor James Dinwiddie and John Barrow, experts in astronomy, mathematics and engineering, accompanied the embassy to demonstrate numerous devices and conduct scientific experiments to impress the Chinese with western technology. The attendant support staff, including physicians, musicians and technicians brought the size of Britain's first diplomatic venture into China to nearly 700 men.

One of the last offices filled was that of Chinese translator. It is remarkable that, despite the numerous voyages to China by the East India Company, no one in the British Empire managed to develop any proficiency in the Chinese language. Although some of the Canton merchants had learned just enough Portuguese and English to translate in matters of business, they were wary of conducting a conversation on any other matter. Furthermore, the Chinese dialect from Canton was virtually unintelligible to the mandarins of Beijing. Sir George Staunton traveled to Europe in search of men who could speak mandarin Chinese. In Italy, with help from Britain's Minister to Naples Sir William Hamilton, Staunton located two amiable Chinese priests who could translate among mandarin, Italian and Latin, which Lord Macartney understood. The two priests proved invaluable in selecting the appropriate gifts for the Chinese emperor.

The embassy to China afforded the British a unique opportunity to expand European maritime knowledge by sailing through the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Bo Hai directly to Tianjin. Such a voyage, conducted under the flag of a diplomatic mission, would not arouse Chinese suspicions nor offend the Chinese government by its presence in the area. This route was far more preferable than sailing to Canton and having to face extended exposure to the uncertainties of an extended overland journey to the capitol through the heart of China.

Before the embassy left England, the British government directed East India Company commissioners at Canton to deliver a letter from Sir Francis Baring, Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Company, to the Viceroy of Canton announcing the impending arrival of the Macartney mission at Tianjin. The government wanted to prevent the Chinese from assuming that Lord Macartney's arrival of was a warlike or suspicious act and directed the letter be presented in so public and obvious a manner as to prevent it from being kept from the emperor.

The British Admiralty assigned the 64-gun man-of-war H.M.S. Lion to carry the ambassador's mission to China under the command of Captain Erasamus Gower. The Macartney diplomatic mission left England for China in September 26, 1792, accompanied by one of the largest merchant ships of the British East India Company, the H.M.S. Hindustan, under the command of Captain Mackintosh. After port calls at Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, the islands of St Helena and Tristan d'Acunha, and Batavia, the embassy reached Macao on June 20, 1793. From there, it proceeded along the Chinese coast to the port of Zhousan in Chekiang Province, east of Ningbo at the southern end of the Zhousan Archipelago, where the British ships expected to take on board Chinese pilots to guide them to Tianjin. It took a few days to procure suitable pilots and once underway from Zhousan, the British expedition learned that Chinese sailors never made long voyages when they could be avoided. Commerce in the Yellow Sea was carried on from one port to the next and from one province to the next, not direct from the point of departure to their destination.

After a near tortuous port-to-port journey through the Yellow Sea along the Chinese coast at the height of summer, the ships of Lord Macartney's embassy finally dropped anchor off the coast at Dagu at the mouth of the Beihe (Haihe) River, just below Tianjin. The arrival of British ships in the crowded anchorage caused quite a commotion among the Chinese as government officials greeted the British and made all preparations for their trip to the Manchu capital at Beijing. Following a hospitable welcome, the Chinese escorted the entourage upriver toward Beijing aboard a Chinese vessel flying a banner which stated, "Tribute-bearer from England," a display quite in keeping with the Chinese custom of claiming all gifts as tribute. All along their journey upriver the British saw a rich and picturesque landscape adorned with "elegant villas and delightful gardens." The vast crowds that lined the river to watch the unique parade of ships gave the British a strong impression of "the immense population attributed to the Chinese Empire."

The embassy reached the town of Dongzhou in mid-August, where it disembarked and made the last stage of its journey to Beijing by road. The British delegation was lodged in the Manchu capital in grand accommodations, where it unpacked and began preparations for the upcoming visit with the emperor. On the morning of August 23, the Chinese legate assigned to the mission brought a group of Catholic missionaries to Lord Macartney's quarters (three Portuguese, three Italians, a Frenchman and two others) to act as interpreters for the English during their stay. Although grateful for the assistance, Macartney felt uneasy about placing much confidence in them. That evening, Macartney was taken to the imperial palace at Yuan Ming Yuan, the "garden of gardens," to arrange for the presentation of gifts for the emperor. British artifacts were no strangers to the Manchu court, for at one end of the vast throne room, Macartney observed an old English musical clock, "very much admired in its time," whose face displayed the words, George Clark, Clock and Watchmaker, Leadenhall Street, London. To the British ambassador, the gifts carefully placed around the emperor's magnificent carved mahogany throne presented "an assemblage of such ingenuity, utility, and beauty as is not to be seen collected together in any other apartments, I believe, of the whole world besides."

On August 29, Lord Macartney reviewed the protocols of his upcoming royal audience with the Chinese legate. He expressed his desire to do whatever he thought would be most agreeable to the emperor, but as the representative of King George III, his first duty was to maintain the dignity of the British sovereign. Chinese court etiquette demanded that anyone who approached the emperor's throne must perform the kowtow, (kou tou), that is, must kneel three times, and at each kneeling must bow three times till his head touched the floor. This was the customary way in which greater idols were approached and signified that the emperor was a god. In order to reconcile this issue and his duty to king and country, Lord Macartney informed the Chinese legate that he would not perform the kowtow unless a Chinese state official of equal rank would also kowtow before a picture of the King of England.

Lord Macartney next sought to have someone translate and transcribe his protocol document to the emperor and to put it into the proper diplomatic form. None of the Catholic missionaries assigned to his delegation as interpreters felt comfortable "intermeddling in any state matter without the special authority of government." The French missionary, Father Raux, finally consented only on condition that neither his writing nor that of his secretary should appear in the final document. To solve this problem, Lord Macartney turned to his young page, twelve-year-old George Thomas Staunton, son of Sir George Staunton, secretary to the British embassy. Thomas had studied Chinese with Macartney's two interpreters during the voyage to China and not only learned to speak a little Chinese, but had become quite proficient at neatly writing Chinese characters. Amazingly, the diplomatic document delivered to the Manchu emperor was penned by the hand of a child.

On the morning of September 2, the British diplomatic delegation departed for the emperor's Imperial Summer Villa at Chengde, located about 110 mi (175 km) to the north. After a two-day march through rough and hilly country, the embassy spent its second night quartered in a garrisoned town about thirty-eight miles from Beijing. The following morning, the British got their first look and examination of the awe-inspiring Great Wall of China. Sergeant Major Samuel Holmes of the 11th Light Dragoons, in his notes of the occasion, commented that the wall stretched across "rocks and precipices, so dreadful in themselves, that one could not think any prospect of gain could induce men to venture their lives in passing them." For the next four days, the British marched north, through sparsely populated mountainous country, finally arriving at the outskirts of the city of a suburban village near the emperor's Summer Villa, on the evening of September 7. True to the dignity of the occasion the line of march into the village was led by the Light Dragoons, followed by the Royal Artillery and Infantry. Behind them marched the musicians, playing "God Save the King," followed by the senior members of the delegation. Bringing up the rear were the embassy's technical and support personnel.

At 4 am on Saturday morning, September 14, 1793, Lord Macartney's delegation, accompanied by the two Chinese mandarins assigned to care for the British embassy during its visit to China, departed their quarters for the three mile march to the Imperial Summer Villa. After arriving at the main gate, Lizhengmen, with all due pomp and ceremony, the British delegates were escorted onto the palace grounds to the imperial encampment and taken to a large tent erected next to the emperor's tent prepared for their arrival. The emperor's pavilion was a large structure nearly seventy-five feet in diameter supported by gilded, painted or varnished pillars and elegantly furnished. The eighteen foot opening to the tent was covered by a bright yellow fly tent that extended the distance from the entrance to the throne. To Lord Macartney, "the whole assemblage filled the eye with delight, and diffused over the mind a pleasing serenity and repose undisturbed by glitter or affected embellishments."

Under the watchful eyes of a troop of Manchu horseman, the imperial family and mandarins of the first rank gathered in the predawn hours for the ceremony, which also included ambassadors from Burma and little Bukharia. At nine a.m., the sound of drums and musical instruments heralded the approach of the Qianlong Emperor Gaozong. Emerging from a grove in the background, sixteen men carried the emperor's palanquin chair to his pavilion, followed by the First Minister of State and a large retinue of mandarin officials dressed in yellow and state officials bearing flags, standards, lanterns, and umbrellas. Clad in a plain dark silk and wearing a velvet bonnet adorned with a single a pearl in front, Emperor Gaozong wore no other distinguishing mark of his high rank. As the emperor passed, the British delegation knelt on one knee in a show of respect, just as they would have for the King of England, while the Chinese bowed to the ground in their usual prostrations before the emperor. This unique compromise on the serious matter of court etiquette was not always granted. The next English ambassador to China, Lord Amherst, who visited in 1816-1817, flatly refused to kowtow. The Chinese told him he was a very rude man who did not know how to behave and ordered him to go home at once.

As soon as the emperor was seated on his throne, Lord Macartney approached his tent and delivered the large golden box encrusted with diamonds inside which was the letter addressed to His Imperial Majesty from George III, King of England. Lord Macartney and his staff then presented their gifts from the King of England to the Manchu emperor, who took them graciously, handed them to his minister of state and, in turn, presented each of the principal British delegates a carved stone scepter, emblematic of peace and prosperity.

Alluding to the inconvenient delays in translating from English to Chinese and back to English, Emperor Gaozong asked his minister if anyone in the British delegation understood the Chinese language. When informed that Sir George Staunton's son, now thirteen, was the only one with some proficiency, the emperor had the young boy brought before his throne and asked him to speak Chinese. Either what the boy said or his modest demeanor so pleased the emperor that he removed a small plain yellow silk purse from his waistband embroidered with the figure of the five-clawed dragon and presented it to the boy as a gift. This was no small gift, but a mark of personal favor among Asian nations, where anything worn by the person of the sovereign is prized above all other gifts. The gift earned the young lad notice and hugs from among the mandarins present and, no doubt, envy from others.

After the exchange of gifts, the delegation sat down at tables prepared in front of the emperor's pavilion around which sat all the Manchu princes and mandarins of the court. Everyone enjoyed the "sumptuous banquet" and entertainment that consisted of wrestling, wire-dancing, tumbling, and dramatic presentations. According to Macartney, in the light conversation that followed, he found the eighty-three-year-old emperor perfectly good-humored, "dignified, but affable and condescending, and his reception of us has been very gracious and satisfactory." The emperor assured Lord Macartney of the satisfaction he felt regarding King George's esteem and good will in sending him an embassy with a letter and rare presents. He also expressed similar sentiments toward the sovereign of Great Britain and hoped that harmony would always be maintained between their respective subjects. The entire ceremony lasted about five hours and shortly after noon, the assembly dispersed. That afternoon, the British embassy left Chengde for Beijing.

Emperor Gaozong also departed his Summer Villa for Beijing, where he called for a meeting with his ministers to deliberate how to answer the letter from King George III. One of the Catholic missionaries, Father Kosielski, informed Lord Macartney that even before the British had presented their letter from the King of England, some of the mandarins had expressed their opinion to the emperor that the British should be encouraged to leave China within forty days, a period the Chinese pretended was the maximum length of stay permitted any foreign tribute mission under Chinese law. In response, Lord Macartney sent a note to the Minister of State on October 1 thanking the emperor for permission to allow the H.M.S. Hindustan to load at Zhousan duty free for the return to Europe. He also asked permission for Captain Mackintosh to depart for Zhousan without delay.

In his meeting with the Minister of State the following morning at Yuan Ming Yuan, Lord Macartney was presented with two letters from Captain Gower aboard H.M.S. Lion and Captain Mackintosh received a letter from his First Mate aboard the Hindustan. The letters notified Macartney that Lion was readying to leave Zhousan as soon as possible, but that Hindustan could not sail before the arrival of its commanding officer. The minister expressed his hope the Lion had not yet set sail, for he imagined that after such an extended stay away from England, the British must be anxious to return home. The Chinese minister noted that a few members of the British delegation had already died and, with the approach of winter, they would be exposed to a cold China winter in Beijing. Appearing anxious to protect the British from risking their health, he urged Macartney to begin be thinking about his departure for England sooner rather than later.

Lord Macartney tried to impress on the Chinese minister that, based on the flattering hopes he received from the emperor at the Chengde that the two should meet so he could fully explain his instructions from the King and enter into negotiations on the points contained in them. Macartney noted that his mission had barely begun and that it was his king's wishes that he be allowed to reside at the emperor's court, at British expense, in order to cement a firm and lasting bond between the two monarchs. He also described his proposal that the emperor should dispatch a Chinese embassy to England. Lord Macartney carefully described his position so as not to have it appear as a list of demands, but to emphasize the propriety each point on its own merit. The minister, in his usual courteous manner, deflected any talk of such matters and repeatedly restated the reason for the emperor's proposal for the British departure was grounded solely in his concern for the ambassador's health.

Lord Macartney came away from his meeting with the Minister of State feeling very uncomfortable about the future prospects for his mission even though at its conclusion the grace and flattering courtesy expressed by the minister and his staff led Macartney's interpreter to congratulate him on the fair prospects for the negotiations and his optimism about the outcome. James Dinwiddie and John Barrow spent the next two days supervising the demonstration of English technology and conducting experiments for the emperor, the chief ministers and mandarins at Yuan Ming Yuan. The Chinese reacted with a reserved and detached bemusement at the demonstrations, giving them little serious consideration.

Lord Macartney received word on October 2 that Emperor Gaozong's reply to King George III had already been prepared and was being translated into Latin from Chinese. He interpreted the message as an infallible indication of the Qing court's intentions and took it as a signal that the British should leave China. The two mandarins who had been with the British since their arrival notified Macartney that the Minister of State wished to meet with him at Yuan Ming Yuan the following morning to receive the emperor's letter and advised the ambassador to ask for permission to depart without delay. That same day, Macartney received word from one of the missionaries that an order for the British departure had passed the council of ministers and was signed by the emperor. Adding to the urgency of the moment, Macartney received a letter from one of the East India commissioners at Canton which hinted of impending war between Great Britain and France.

Early on the morning of October 3, Lord Macartney was summoned to meet in ceremony with the Minister of State and his staff at Yuan Ming Yuan. Escorted through the great palace to the foot of the great stairs to the imperial hall, Macartney discovered an empty arm-chair covered with fine yellow silk representing the majesty of China and containing the letter from Emperor Gaozong to King George III . After displaying the usual respect to the emperor, the empty chair was carried with great ceremony into the imperial hall followed by the British. The Minister of State explained that the emperor's letter would be delivered to the ambassador's quarters the following day with the same pomp and ceremony, and that the bundles of silks, porcelain and teas carefully placed on tables, each covered by fine yellow silk, were the remaining gifts from the emperor to the King of England and presents for each member of the British embassy.

Suffering from illness, Lord Macartney asked to leave the meeting with the Manchu minister and requested that Sir George Staunton be permitted to resume discussion of negotiating points brought up the day before. The Minister of State used the protocol of the meeting to quash any hopes Macartney held that the talks would move beyond this formal level and become the basis for discussion of a commercial treaty and resident diplomatic presence. In a tone that suggested nothing fruitful would ever come from such a conversation, the Minister suggested that Macartney send him a note containing his requests. Taking every opportunity to press his point, Lord Macartney dispatched his note to the Minister of State that same evening.

Macartney's narrowly-focused message consisted of six principal articles extracted from his diplomatic instructions. First, he requested that English merchants be allowed to trade at Zhousan, Limbo and Tianjin;  second, that English merchants be given warehouse space in Beijing to sell their goods, just as the Russians had been given under the Treaty of Nerchinsk;  third, to permit the British some small island near Zhousan as a storage facility for unsold goods and to provide living quarters for those people needed to maintain them;  fourth, to allow the British similar privileges near Canton;  fifth, to abolish the transit duties between Canton and Macao, or at least to reduce them to the level in force in 1782;  sixth, to prohibit the exaction of duties from English merchants beyond those settled in the emperor's edict, a copy of which should be given to the merchants for their future guidance, as they had yet to read it.

On Friday, October 4, Father Amyot, who had earlier told Macartney of the early preparation of the emperor's letter, informed the ambassador that the Chinese consider embassies as merely temporary ceremonies sent on particular occasions and that none of them from Europe ever lasted very long. The last embassy from Portugal lasted only six weeks. Although the Chinese had no favorable ideas regarding treaties with foreign powers, Father Amyot expressed the opinion that if applied to slowly over time with due care and diplomatic skill, the Chinese might well give such relations favorable consideration. He added that nothing should be expected to happen quickly.

The British were informed the next day they had but two days to leave Beijing. The British delegation fell into a state of near total confusion as they rushed to disassemble and pack their engineering marvels and demonstrations. Hurrying to depart the next day, many of the items were simply sent off unpacked. Before they left, Chinese servants were observed tearing off the silk, paper and other decorations from the rooms. At noon on October 7, the British embassy to China left Beijing for the eight hour march to the village of Dongzhou, where they hurriedly loaded their luggage and equipment aboard boats for the journey to the sea.

Carried aboard boats far less accommodating than those which brought them to the Manchu capital that summer, the British felt as though they were being pushed out of China. Lord Macartney and his delegation finally got aboard the H.M.S. Lion and H.M.S. Hindustan on March 8, 1794. The ships waited near the mouth Zhousan harbor for another week waiting for a fleet of Indiamen to arrive for the voyage to Europe under the protection of Lion's 64 cannon. Finally, on March 17, the entire fleet of eighteen ships departed Zhousan and took its last look at the Celestial Empire.

Back aboard the Lion, Lord Macartney reflected on the events of the past sixteen months in China.

"Its object was noble - the extension of commerce, and the improvement of science. With regard to the first, nothing that looks like an improvement has yet taken place;  and as to the other object, little could be done in a country where, while at Pekin, we were prisoners and on our journey hurried forward with hardly time to look at an object, and without being able to converse with the inhabitants. ... To travel through a fine country ... without being able to ask a single question, is extremely mortifying. ... to receive a present from the Emperor at parting, and the Colao's [State Minister's] farewell speech, without knowing a word he said, and consequently to fall into numberless blunders in our attempt to reply - what information could we derive respecting the arts and sciences in a country where we could not converse with the inhabitants? ... We go home - are asked what we have done. Our answer - we could not speak to the people."

Lord Macartney had been very anxious to secure some privileges for the British trade, but China's Minister of State was just as anxious to evade all conversation related to business. China considered the splendid British embassy only as a tributary mission and treated it as such. Chinese officials were polite and gracious hosts, but the British had not sailed half way around the world for empty compliments. Arriving with the best of European technology and military skills, the British anticipated the Chinese would be awestruck and duly impressed by what they saw. Instead, Chinese mandarins saw little that truly impressed them. Within two minutes of viewing the marvelous lenses and mirrors demonstrated by James Dinwiddie, Emperor Gaozong remarked, "These things are good enough to amuse children." In his notes, Dinwiddie observed, "Ask them whether the contrivers and makers of such curious and elegant machinery must not be men of understanding, and superior persons. They answered, 'These are curious things, but what are their use? Do the Europeans understand the art of Government as equally polished?' "

Despite the failure of Britain's first diplomatic embassy to China, it proved to be a valuable artistic and literary achievement. The widely read publications that resulted from this venture served to educate the European public on contemporary China. England's first-hand experience in China also provided important insights into relations between the two nations, such as the self-sufficient nature of Chinese technology and the vital importance of language in diplomacy and exploration. It would take several decades and the regrettable application of military force before China ever allowed a resident ambassador on its native soil and freedom to trade in the interior. To be fair, the disappointing outcome of Macartney's mission cannot be laid entirely at the seasoned diplomat's feet. At the time of his visit, the Manchu government was still strongly in need of maintaining a public attitude of Chinese superiority over foreigners and Emperor Gaozong's government was simply not interested in, let alone convinced of any need for a treaty of commerce with "foreign devils." In the end, Lord George Macartney's mission to China failed for the simplest of reasons;  it never stood the slightest chance of success from the very beginning.