TARDIEU, J.B.P. / STAUNTON, G.L. - Carte sur laquelle est tracé la route qu'à suivie l'ambassade Anglaise, Depuis Zhé-Hol en Tartarie jusqu'à Pekin, et de Pekin a Han-Choo-Foo, en Chine. . . Carte II.

Finely engraved map showing Peking until Hangzhou, engraved by Jean Baptiste Pierre Tardieu for Voyage dans l'intérieur de la Chine et en Tartarie, fait dans les années 1792, 1793 et 1794, par Lord Macartney, Traduit de l'anglais, avec des notes, par J. Castéra. .
Map from a French edition of the first official British Embassy to China, headed by George, Earl Macartney. Macartney was dispatched to Peking in 1792, travelling via Madeira, Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of Good Hope and Indonesia. He was accompanied by George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801), and a retinue of suitably impressive size, including Staunton's 11-year-old son, who was nominally Macartney's page. It emerged on arrival that the boy was only one who had bothered to learn Chinese, and was therefore the only one able to converse with the Emperor during the Ambassador's two audiences. The Embassy "sought to improve commercial relations with China, through Canton (Guangzhou), and to establish regular diplomatic relations between the two countries. Though Macartney and Staunton had an audience with the emperor their proposals were rebuffed In China [Staunton] closely observed and noted all that he saw, and during expeditions he was able to collect botanical specimens" (ODNB).
The party returned via Macao and St. Helena, arriving back in 1794. Young George Thomas Staunton became a writer at the HEIC's Canton factory in 1798, advancing to supercargo in 1804 and chief interpreter in 1808, and in 1816 he accompanied Amherst's ill-fated embassy to Peking as chief of the Canton factory.