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Lord George Macartney
(1737-1806)
was the English ambassador sent to China . The first British
Embassy to China, for the promotion of science and to secure
a more favorable trade agreement and diplomatic ties, set sail from
Spithead on 26 September 1792. The embassy was given the
opportunity of traversing a part of the country beyond the Great
Wall when it travelled in early September 1793 to Jehol, one of the
summer residences of the Manchu Emperors.
Macartney, along with visiting Mongols and Burmese, was then given a single imperial audience and presents for his mission and the King. He received no state dinner. Macartney was received only as a tribute bearer. The 85-year-old Emperor Qianlong 's councilors had already prepared a haughtily worded edict. It acknowledged King George III's "sincere humility and obedience" in sending a tribute mission to the Emperor. It also absolutely rejected the proposals for changing the existing trade arrangements since they did not "conform to the Celestial Empire's ceremonial system." This was quite possibly because the Chinese government was alarmed by news of recent great troubles in Europe and considered the inhabitants there to be of a turbulent character, conquering nations by violence and deception. The imperial edict Macartney was to convey to George III declared that China was self-sufficient and had "not the slightest need for your Country's manufactures." It also admonished the British monarch to "act in conformity with our wishes by strengthening your loyalty and swearing perpetual obedience..." After the audience there was the return to Peking in late September. The embassy was allowed to return from the Chinese capital beginning on 7 October to Canton through the interior of China. Reaching Canton on 19 December, the members sojourned in that city and in Macao, leaving there on 17 March 1794 and arriving in England on 6 September. Sir George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801), Secretary to the embassy, brought home from this journey a rare collection of Chinese plants gathered by him in regions where plants had never been collected by Europeans before. The secretary was charged with producing the official account of the Embassy after their return. Some 400 plants are listed with their botanical names in Staunton's three-volume work, An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China ... : Together with a relation of the voyage ... to the Yellow Sea, and Gulf of Pekin ... : Taken chiefly from the papers of ... the Earl of Macartney ... Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary ... and Sir Erasmus Gower, Commander of the Expedition, and of other gentlemen ... of the Embassy. 
"The ambassador said that the understanding of dwarf tree culture was a secret, and was very highly esteemed." 1 We have since discovered that, per The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century by Jules Verne, translated from the French (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; 1887), pp. 363-364, the following comments are given apparently with Macartney's account: “...an opportunity was taken to visit Tinghai, where the English excited as much curiosity as they felt themselves at the sight of the many things which were new to them. “Many of the facts which surprised them are familiar to us, the appearance of the houses, the markets and dress of the Chinese, the small feet of the women, and many other particulars to which we need not refer. We will only allude to the account of the method employed by them in cultivating dwarf trees. “'This stunted vegetation,' says Macartney, 'seems to be highly appreciated in China, for specimens of it are found in all the larger houses. It is an art peculiar to the Chinese, and the gardener's skill consists in knowing how to produce it. Independently of the satisfaction of triumphing over a difficulty, he has the advantage of introducing into rooms plants whose natural size would have precluded such a possibility. “'The following is the method employed in China for the production of dwarfed trees. The trunk of a tree of which it is desired to obtain a dwarfed specimen, is covered as nearly as possible where it separates into branches with clay or mould, over which is placed a linen or cotton covering constantly kept damp. This mould is sometimes left on for a whole year, and throughout that time the wood it covered throws out tender, root-like fibres. Then the portions of the trunk from which issue these fibres, with the branch immediately above them, are carefully separated from the tree and placed in fresh mould, where the shoots soon develope into real roots, whilst the branch forms the stem of a plant which is in a manner metamorphosed. This operation neither destroys nor alters the productive faculties of the branch which is separated from the parent tree. When it bears fruit or flowers it does so as plentifully as when it was upon the original stem. The extremities of the branches intended to be dwarfed are always pulled off, which precludes the possibility of their growing tall, and forces them to throw out shoots and lateral branches. These shoots are tired with wire, and assume the form the gardener chooses. When it is desired to give an aged appearance to the tree, it is constantly moistened with theriaca or treacle, which attracts to it multitudes of ants, who not content with devouring the sweetmeat, attack the bark of the tree, and eat it away in such a manner as to produce the desired effect.' “Upon leaving Chusan, the squadron entered the Yellow Sea, never before navigated by an European vessel...” |