Background
The Macartney Embassy
In 1757, after nearly two centuries of limited trade between Western nations and China under the Canton System, the Qianlong Emperor suddenly halted all foreign exchange outside of Guangzhou. In response to these newly imposed restrictions, as well as an increasing trade imbalance that favored the Chinese, British merchants lobbied for a diplomatic appeal to re-open and expand British markets in China. George Macartney and his companions (including Staunton) were then sent forth on behalf of the British Crown in what would famously be remembered as Britain's first attempt at East Asian diplomacy, the Macartney Embassy.
Although ultimately unsuccessful in its primary objectives, emphasized by a letter sent from the Qianlong Emperor to King George III vehemently refusing all British proposals, the expedition remained valuable in the wealth of information it brought back from China. The accounts of the embassy members, including George Staunton's compilation of multiple expedition journals, would become the first widely accessible eye-witness accounts of China avaliable in the West.