George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney

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George Macartney should not be confused with Sir George McCartney, a later British statesman.

George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, KB (14 May 1737 - 31 May 1806) was a British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat.

[edit] Biography

George Macartney was descended from an old Scottish family, the Macartneys of Auchinleck, who had settled in 1649 at Lissanoure, County Antrim, Ireland, where he was born. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1759, he became a student of the Temple, London. Through Stephen Fox, elder brother of Charles James Fox, he was taken up by Lord Holland.

Appointed envoy extraordinary to Russia in 1764, he succeeded in negotiating with Catherine II an alliance between England and that country. After occupying a seat in the English parliament, he was returned in 1769 to the Irish House of Commons as MP for Armagh Borough, in order to discharge the duties of Chief Secretary for Ireland. On resigning this office he was knighted.

In 1775 he became governor of the Caribbean Islands was created Baron Macartney in the Peerage of Ireland in 1776, and became governor of Madras (now known as Chennai) in 1780. He declined the governor-generalship of India, and returned to England in 1786.

After being created Earl Macartney in the Irish peerage (1792), he was appointed the first envoy of Britain to China. He led the Macartney Embassy to Beijing in 1793 with a large British delegation on board of a 64-gun man-of-war. He met the Emperor Qianlong, despite his famous refusal to kowtow and insult over a jade gift (which Macartney referred to as a worthless rock), but failed in negotiating the British requests:

• the relaxation of the restrictions on trade between Britain and China
• the acquisition by Britain of "a small unfortified island near Chusan for the residence of English traders, storage of goods, and outfitting of ships"
• the establishment of a permanent British embassy in Beijing

The embassy returned to Britain in 1794.

On his return from a confidential mission to Italy (1795) he was raised to the British peerage as Baron Macartney, and in the end of 1796 was appointed governor of the newly acquired territory of the Cape of Good Hope, where he remained until ill health compelled him to resign in November 1798. He died at Chiswick, Middlesex, on May 31, 1806, the title becoming extinct, and his property, after the death of his widow (Lady Jane Stuart, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bute; they were married in 1768), going to his niece, whose son took the name.

[edit] See also

• William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst
• Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest

[edit] References

• Two members of the embassy to China published detailed accounts:
  • An account of Macartney's embassy to China, by Sir George Leonard Staunton, was published in 1797, and has been frequently reprinted.
  • Some Account of the Public Life, and a Selection from the Unpublished Writings, of the Earl of Macartney, by Sir John Barrow, appeared in 1807 by London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.
• See also Mrs Helen Macartney Robbins's biography, Our First Ambassador to China: : An Account of the Life of George, Earl of Macartney (1908), based on previously unpublished materials in possession of the family.
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by The Earl of Buckinghamshire	Ambassador from the United Kingdom to Russia 1764–1766	Succeeded by Hans Stanley
Preceded by Hans Stanley	Ambassador from the United Kingdom to Russia 1767–1768	Succeeded by The Lord Cathcart
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Frederick Campbell	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1769–1772	Succeeded by Sir John Blaquiere
Preceded by New Creation	Earl Macartney 1792–1806	Succeeded by Extinct
	Baron Macartney 1776–1806
	Baron Macartney 1795–1806