What was Christmas day like in Canton in 1793? The great British Embassy to the Qianlong Emperor in Peking was ending with the return to Canton down the Grand Canal and internal river system. Lord Macartney and his entourage reached Canton not long before Christmas in 1793 after meeting the Emperor, handing over a great pile of extravagant gifts, exchanging letters and requests, and  bending the knee and bowing. While they failed to  get the trading agreements and ambassadorial rights aimed for, the meeting was a crucial point in the geopolitics of the time; the two leading global cultures and empires coming face to face.

In the Embassy was a 12-year old boy, George Thomas Staunton, son of the second in command Sir George Leonard Staunton, and valet to Macartney. He kept a diary that, while sometimes referred to,  has never been published and is among his papers at Duke University, North Carolina, US. The second part of his diary, from August 1793 to February 1794 has been digitised and you can read a transcript of it here (read more).

And what about that Christmas? Mor than 50 men at the table and cold enough for a fire.

Wednesday the 25th 
Christmas Day
This morning Mr Parish went with most of the soldiers aboard the Lyon. 
Today we all went over the water to dine at the factory. A little before dinner 
we went to see Mr Duncan who showed us some very hansome drawings of plants and 
several curious growing ones. We dined in a very large and hansome room adorned 
with several large and beautiful pictures. 
We were above 50 at table, consisting of the gentlemen of the factory, 
most of the captains of the Indiamen, and us. In the evening we returned to the 
house. The weather is grown much warmer since our arrival there, so be rather to 
hot than to cold, notwithstanding that about this time the gentlemen here have 
been obliged to make use of a fire. 

‘Hansome’ is George’s own spelling, and the ‘Lyon’ was HMS Lion, the Embassy’s leading warship. George Thomas Staunton went on to become employed by the East India Company, was second in command of the subsequent British Embassy led by Lord Amherst in 1816, and later a British MP and resident Sinophile (read more). It may be that nothing he did in his life was as momentous as that great journey, which included being singled out by the Emperor to say a few words in Chinese, George being the only British member of the Embassy with any knowledge of both the spoken and written Chinese language.  He received a yellow silk purse from the Emperor’s own hand, and records the event with the coolness of an old hand before his time.