EMBASSY TO CHINA, ETC.
Government had some time ago despatched Lord, Macartney on an embassy to China, and about this time the result of his mission became known. The embassy had been fitted out without any reasonable ground of success; but it was still expected that it might be the means of establishing a communication with that great empire. But the event did not answer these expectations. His lordship was received with suspicion, and ordered to depart as soon as he had made some costly presents, and received some trifling ones in return, being refused even a few days’ delay. As one of the ambassador’s suite observed, “They entered Pekin like paupers, remained in it like prisoners, and quitted it like vagrants.”