John Hamilton Irving (or Irven, Irwin, or Ervin), a surgeon convicted of larceny on March 6, 1784, had been sentenced to "seven years beyond the seas," and sent on one of the First Fleet transport.

After exhibiting a willing readiness to assist with his exceptional surgical skills, he had been emancipated by Governor Arthur Phillip on February 28, 1790, and had worked thereafter as an assistant surgeon.

Irving's Warrant of Emancipation was received in England on July 14, 1792, and acknowledged by Henry Dundas, the Secretary of State.

Irving thus becomes Australia's first emancipist.

Governor Philip returns to England in 1792, accompanied by his friend Bennelong and a companion who becomes the first Australian born person to sail to Europe.

Foreign maritime trade in China is regulated through the Canton System, which had emerged gradually through a series of imperial edicts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This system channels formal trade through the Cohong, a guild of thirteen trading companies (known in Cantonese as "hong") selected by the imperial government.

In 1725, the Yongzheng Emperor had given the Cohong legal responsibility over commerce in Guangzhou.

By the eighteenth century, Guangzhou, known as Canton to British merchants, had become the most active port in the China trade, thanks partly to its convenient access to the Pearl River Delta.

In 1757, the Qianlong Emperor confines all foreign maritime trade to Guangzhou.

Qianlong, who rules the Qing dynasty at its zenith, is wary of the transformations of Chinese society that might result from unrestricted foreign access.

Chinese subjects are not permitted to teach the Chinese language to foreigners, and European traders are forbidden to bring women into China.

By the late eighteenth century, British traders feel confined by the Canton System and, in an attempt to gain greater trade rights, they have lobbied for an embassy to go before the emperor and request changes to the current arrangements.

The need for an embassy is partly due to the growing trade imbalance between China and Great Britain, driven largely by the British demand for tea, as well as other Chinese products like porcelain and silk.

The East India Company, whose trade monopoly in the East encompasses the tea trade, is obliged by the Qing government to pay for Chinese tea with silver.

To address the trade deficit, efforts are made to find British products that can be sold to the Chinese.

At the time of Macartney's mission to China, the East India Company is beginning to grow opium in India to sell in China.

The Company had made a concerted effort starting in the 1780s to finance the tea trade with opium.

George Macartney, who had served in India as Governor of Madras (present-day Chennai), is ambivalent about selling the drug to the Chinese, preferring to substitute "rice or any better production in its place".

An official embassy will provide an opportunity to introduce new British products to the Chinese market, which the East India Company had been criticized for failing to do.

Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and East India Company official Henry Dundas had dispatched Colonel Charles Cathcart in 1787 to serve as Britain's first ambassador to China.

Cathcart had become ill during the voyage, however, and died just before his ship, HMS Vestal, reached China.

After the failure of the Cathcart Embassy, George Macartney had proposed that another attempt be made under his friend Sir George Staunton.

Dundas, who had become Home Secretary, suggested in 1791 that Macartney himself take up the mission instead.

Macartney had accepted on the condition that he will be made an earl, and given the authority to choose his companions.

More British subjects have been trading in China than any other Europeans.

Despite this, the British have no direct contact with the emperor, in contrast to the Portuguese, whose Jesuit missionaries retain permanent positions at the imperial court.

Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, officially instructs Lord Macartney to negotiate a relaxation of the Canton System, such that British traders can operate in more ports and markets, and to obtain a small island on the Chinese coast from which British merchants can operate under British jurisdiction.

He is also to establish a permanent embassy in Beijing so as to create a direct line of communication between the two governments, cutting out the Cantonese merchants who had served as middlemen.

Finally, he is to gather intelligence on the Chinese government and society, about which little is known in Europe at this time.

The instructions from Dundas also stipulate  that Macartney should establish trade relations with other nations of the East.

To this effect, Macartney is given letters of credence to the Emperor of Japan, to be executed after completing his mission to China.

The instructions state that it may be useful for him to visit Japan to establish trade relations, particularly to enable a trade in tea.

Despite the misgivings of the East India Company about the potential downsides of the mission, the Company is compelled by the government to fund the effort.

Dundas and Macartney prioritize national interests over those of the Company, which fears the loss of its monopoly position, and the possibility that the embassy will strain diplomatic relations instead of improving them.

By sending a direct representative of the British crown, British politician and later Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville reasons that the mission will be given greater attention than if it had been sent "only in the name of a trading company".

One of the goals of the embassy is to demonstrate the utility of British science and technology, in hopes of encouraging Chinese purchases of British goods.

In keeping with these objectives, the mission is to bring with it a number of gifts including clocks, telescopes, weapons, textiles, and other products of technology.

Macartney intends the display of technical prowess to reflect Britain's "national character", one of ingenuity, exploration, and curiosity about the natural world.

Nevertheless, Dundas reminds him that the mission is not "a delegation of the Royal Society"

Macartney chooses George Staunton as his right-hand man, whom he entrusts to continue the mission should Macartney himself prove unable to do so.

Staunton will bring along his son, Thomas, who serves the mission as a page.

John Barrow (later Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet) serves as the embassy's comptroller.

Joining the mission are two doctors (Hugh Gillan and William Scott), two secretaries, three attachés, and a military escort.

Artists William Alexander and Thomas Hickey will produce drawings and paintings of the mission's events.

A group of scientists will also accompany the embassy, led by James Dinwiddie.

The mission will bring along four Chinese Catholic priests as interpreters.

Two are from the Collegium Sinicum in Naples, where George Staunton had recruited them.

They are familiar with Latin, but not English.

The other two are priests returning to China, to whom Staunton offers free passage to Macau.

The one hundred-member delegation will also include scholars and valets.

Sir Joseph Banks is among those who have called for a mission to China.

Banks had been the botanist on board the HMS Endeavour for the first voyage of Captain James Cook, as well as the driving force behind the 1787 expedition of the HMS Bounty to Tahiti.

As president of the Royal Society, Banks, who has been growing tea plants privately since 1780, has ambitions to gather valuable plants from all over the world to be studied at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the newly established Calcutta Botanical Garden in Bengal.

Above all, he wants to grow tea in Bengal or Assam, and address the "immense debt of silver" caused by the tea trade.

At this time, botanists are not yet aware that a variety of the tea plant (camellia sinensis var. assamica) is already growing natively in Assam, a fact that Robert Bruce will discover in 1823.

Banks advises the embassy to gather as many plants as possible in their travels, especially tea plants.

He had also insisted that gardeners and artists be present on the expedition to make observations and illustrations of local flora.

Accordingly, David Stronach and John Haxton will serve as the embassy's botanical gardeners.

The Macartney embassy to China departs Portsmouth aboard three ships on September 26, 1792.

The warship HMS Lion, commanded by Captain Sir Erasmus Gower, leads the mission.

The Hindostan, belonging to the East India Company (and later purchased by the Royal Navy as HMS Hindostan), is commanded by Captain William Mackintosh.

These two vessels are accompanied by a brig, the Jackall.

A storm soon hits the squadron, forcing it to stop temporarily at Tor Bay.

After making repairs, the Lion and Hindostan resume their voyage without the Jackall, which had gone missing in the storm.

Fortunately, the gifts to be presented to the emperor are stored on the Lion and the Hindostan.

Thomas Staunton will spend the voyage studying Chinese with the mission's interpreters.

In early October, Earl Macartney's squadron made a stop at Madeira, followed by the Canary Islands later that month.

On November 1, 1792, they reached Cape Verde, waiting for five days for the arrival of the Jackall before continuing their journey.

The trade winds off the coast of Africa force the Macartney squadron to sail west all the way to Rio de Janeiro, where they had arrived at the end of November.

Macartney suffers an attack of gout that lasts a month.

As young Thomas Staunton studies the Chinese language, Macartney learns everything he can about China from the books he has placed in the Lion's library.