Miscellaneous Notices Relating to China, and our Commercial Intercourse with that Country, including a Few Translations from the Chinese Language Cambridge Library Collection - East and South-East Asian History Series

The sinologist George Thomas Staunton (1781?1859) learned Chinese as a child and accompanied his father on a trip to China in 1792 where, though the Ambassador's page, he was the only member of the delegation who could speak to the Emperor in Chinese. A career in the East India Company's Canton factory followed, and he translated many texts between Chinese and English. Upon his return to Britain in 1817, he spent many years as a Tory MP and often spoke about China and its trade with Britain. He also continued to write about these issues, and this collection of translations and essays, published in 1822, reflects Staunton's varied interests - ranging from a translation of the Chinese history, Tung-wha-loo to his own writings on the Company's trade disputes with the Emperor - making this work a unique and valuable source of information on British cultural, economic, and diplomatic relations with China in the early nineteenth-century.

Preface; Literary Notices: 1. Translation of a portion of the Emperor Yong-tching's Book of Sacred Instructions; 2. Notice of a popular game among the Chinese, called Tsoey-moey; 3. Notice of and extract from a Chinese work called Tong-wha-loo; 4. Note on the Chinese language and poetry; 5. Notices of Chinese books; 6. Note relative to certain rites and ceremonies of the Chinese; 7. Note relative to the Catholic missions in China; 8. Translation of Chinese account of the settlement of Macao; 9. Translation of a Chinese dispatch, sent to Russia, 21st Jan. 1890; 10. Table of contents of a Chinese and Mantchoo-Tartar dictionary; 11. Note on the Pleasing History, a translation of a Chinese novel; 12. Note on the Chinese language and character; 13. Notices of Chinese books; 14. Note upon Renaudot's Ancient Account of India and China; 15. Note upon Amiot's translation of Kien-long's Praise of Mougden, a poem; 16. Note on the Chinese court ceremony of the Ko-tou; Commercial Notices: 17. Considerations on the China Trade, with notes; 18. Additional considerations on the China trade; 19. Note on the British factory in China, and the late Embassy; 20. Note on the suspension of the trade of the East-India Company at Canton, in 1807; 21. Note on the general suspension of the British trade in China, and particularly on the suspension of that part of it called the Country Trade, in 1814; 22. Extract of a letter upon the propositions entertained relative to the China Trade, in 1819; 23. Note on the propositions that have been made for the admission of private British merchants to a participation in the carrying trade between the Port of Canton and the continents of Europe and America; 24. Particulars of the state of the China trade, foreign as well as British, previous to the wars of the French Revolution.