Preface
Introduction
Chapter One Views on China of Macartney and Amherst with a Short Examination of the Views of Henrv Dundas and Castlereagh
Chapter Two Views on China of the Retinues of the Macartney and Amherst Embassies
Chapter Three Views on China of British Contemporaries of the Macartney and Amherst Embassies
Chapter Four Views on China: Some Special Cases
Chapter Five Accounting for the Differences in British Views on China
Chapter Six Reasons for the Increase in British Criticism of China
Chapter Seven Some Comparisons
Conclusion
Appendices
1 Historical Anachronism: The Qing Court's Perception of and Reaction to the Macartney Embassy
2 List of the Writers Whose Views on China Are Examined or Referred to in This Book
3 List of Some Pinyin Romanized Chinese Names and Terms with Comparisons
Notes
Bibliography
Ⅰ Primary Sources
Ⅱ Second Sources
Ⅲ 部分中文参考文献
Index
Sample Pages Preview
In the late eighteenth century, there were heated and conflictingarguments in Britain about the slave trade and slavery within theempire. Influenced by this, the writers of the embassy paid muchattention to the question of whether there were slaves and slavery inChina. As in other respects, their opinions differed. John Barrowasserted that the people in China were, in effect, slaves in thesense that they had little freedom under an arbitrary government.Every man was liable to be made a slave since the laws allowed afather to sell is sons. 58 George L.Staunton said that a man mightsell himself to another man in certain cases, but he was entitled tohis liberty at the end of twenty years of servitude if his conductproved to be unimpeachable.59 Stephen Else asserted that there didexist a species of slavery' among the Chinese and some were evens born slaves'. However, Aeneas Anderson had an opposing view,saying it was a fable that in China masters were desirous of promo-ting marriage among their slaves in order to increase their numberas there was c no such class of people as slaves in the Chinese em-pire'.
