(1793)
Today an envoy arrived from England, announcing himself as a Mr George McCartney. He was quaintly dressed in the restricting and unbecoming robes of the English, and bore with him the mark of the English King, George III. The man claimed that he had a wondrous gift, especially for the celestial court and I knew instantly along with my other Hong companions, that he was yet another ambassador sent from the foreign barbarians to try and improve their trade situations with China, bringing strange and useless gifts to us, expecting to impress us and the Qianlong Emperor.
We accepted his gifts in order to humour him, not wanting to turn him away in case he had something of worth to us, but even we were surprised at the poor effort that England had obviously gone to to try and impress us. McCartney presented a small assortment of time-telling devices, 'quality' British porcelain and a simple, rudimentary model of the heavens above earth. When presented with these gifts my fellow merchants and I laughed heartily, and the envoy seemed taken aback, obviously hurt at us laughing at the efforts that he and his country had gone to to try and prove their greatness to us.
We then took him to the 40 or 50 royal pavilions, (where we stored all the gifts of foreign envoys with the same intention) and he was suddenly aware of why we laughed at him and the pathetic attempts of his country.
What he saw I feel was best described in his own words, which we discovered when our palace spies searched through his journal;

"Furnished in the richest manner, with pictures of the Emperor's huntings and progresses, with stupendous vases of jasper and agate, with the finest porcelains and japan (hard lacquered wood work) and with every kind of European toys and sing-songs, with spheres, planetariums, clocks and musical automatons of such exquisite workmanship, and in such profusion that our presents must shrink from the comparison and hide their diminished heads." (McCartney's journal, from J.L Cranmer-Byng, 1962).

The envoy then asked for an audience with the emperor, to try and plead with him like all of the other desperate countries to improve their trade situations, so that they could increase their revenue and reform the Fan Kwae edict. We granted him an audience with the emperor, knowing that nothing would come of it, but the man managed to create chaos in the harmonious court. Once given an audience with the emperor, he outraged us all by refusing to Kowtow to the emperor, he claimed that it would be disrespectful to both himself and King George III.
What cheek! How can that foreigner dare to call him and his King equal to our perfect ruler? He claimed that accepting to Kowtow would only reinforce the low opinion of Britain and other Western nations.. but they obviously are lower than the Chinese, they are desperate for trade with us; drooling dogs for our tea and our porcelain and willing to give up anything for it and China could easily deny them their pleasures. That is the sign of true power over a country, and it is time that these foreigners learnt their place with us.
The Emperor of course was not impressed with this McCartney, and refused to hear what the proud fool had to say; and has had a letter sent to King George III to accost him for the misbehavior of his ambassador. (appendix 2).

When will these barbarians learn?

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: The palace Eunuchs bickering