Amherst Embassy

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The Amherst Embassy (Chinese: 阿美士德使团) was the second British mission sent to China after the Macartney Embassy, led by Lord Amherst. The immediate reason for dispatching the embassy was to resolve the trade dispute caused by the Doris incident, while its broader purpose was to improve Sino-British relations and promote British trading interests in China by seeking an audience with the Jiaqing Emperor. The embassy departed in February 1816, arrived in Guangdong in early July and joined the British East India Company Guangzhou factory, and reached Tianjin in early August. Because the Amherst Embassy still upheld the Macartney Embassy's diplomatic equality principle, it refused from beginning to end to perform the kowtow (three kneelings and nine prostrations) before the emperor. This led to several days of disputes with Qing court and officials. As a result, on the day it arrived in Beijing, 29 August, the embassy was sent back by Jiaqing; after the embassy left, Jiaqing further issued an edict requiring Britain to "henceforth not send envoys from afar, which only causes unnecessary travel and hardship." Accompanied by Qing official Guanghui, the embassy traveled southward roughly along the route of Macartney's time through China's interior to Guangzhou. What was seen and heard en route further led the British to recognize the decline in Qing national power. If the Macartney Embassy returned without achieving anything, then the Amherst Embassy ended in discord and was even more of a failure than the Macartney Embassy.... The Jiaqing court and officials became more vigilant afterward toward British schemes, but their understanding of British national strength and conditions remained limited, still using trade as leverage in policy toward Britain. After experiencing the successive failures of the Macartney Embassy and the Amherst Embassy, Britain more deeply recognized the current situation of Qing society and economy, and...