Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/22

 involved, that the Company became embroiled with the local Mandarins less by any act of their own servants than by the independent action of the commander of a king's ship. The immediate result was a series of conferences between high officers of the Company and trusted agents of the Court of Pekin; but it was felt that the differences which existed demanded for their adjustment the despatch of an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. To this distinguished and trying office Lord Amherst was appointed by the Prince Regent. There had been a British Embassy to Pekin at the close of the preceding century, but the dismissal of Lord Macartney and the humiliating demands made upon him by the etiquette of the Imperial Court furnished no hopeful augury to the new envoy. Lord Amherst, however, started on his voyage with a brave heart and a cheerful readiness to see good in all things. His own account of the long journey from England to the remotest East, as set forth almost from day to day in the diary kept with his own hand, is a record, fascinating in its simplicity, of many strange experiences. Lady Amherst did not accompany her husband on this first excursion to Oriental climes. His son Jeff, whose name appears so often in the faded entries, was the partner of the delights and the privations of this memorable mission.

The narrative of the voyage may serve to remind us of the world-wide domain over which the East India Company in those days had its stations, and left its imprint. The squadron sailed from Portsmouth