Memoirs of the Chief Incidents of the Public Life of Sir George Thomas Staunton: One of the King's Commissioners to the Court of Pekin, and Afterwards ... - East and South-East Asian History)
Cambridge University Press, 10/1/2010
EAN 9781108014922, ISBN10: 1108014925
Paperback, 248 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Sir George Thomas Staunton (1781–1859), sinologist and politician, was a key figure in early nineteenth-century Anglo-Chinese relations. Staunton secured a post as a writer in the East India Company's factory in Canton in 1798 and was the only Englishman at the factory to study Chinese. He translated China's penal code and was promoted to chief of the Canton factory in 1816. He was a member of Britain's Amherst embassy to Peking in 1816–1817 to protest against mandarins' treatment of Canton merchants. The embassy failed to obtain an imperial interview but, despite being threatened with detention by the Chinese, Staunton insisted that the British should not submit to the emperor. Staunton returned to England in 1817, and served as a Tory MP between 1818 and 1852. Staunton's Memoirs, which were printed privately in 1856, provide a unique insight into nineteenth-century British perceptions of China.
Birth and education
Background to relations with China
First impressions at Canton
Second mission to China
Publication of the Chinese penal code
Return to China
Final visit to China
Relations with China
Opium wars
Parliamentary affairs
Formation of Royal Asiatic Society
Appendix.