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March 8, 2014 |
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In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China, with a view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between that country and the United Kingdom. On arriving in the Peiho he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the emperor Jiaqing Emperor of China|Jiaqing's presence on condition of performing the kow-tow, a ceremony which Western nations considered degrading, and which was, indeed, a homage exacted by a Chinese sovereign from his tributaries. To this Lord Amherst, following the advice of Sir George Leonard Staunton, who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent, as George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney|Lord Macartney had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter Beijing|Pekin, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship, the Alceste, after a cruise along the coast of Korea and to the Ryukyu Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally wrecked on a sunken rock in Caspar Strait. Lord Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St Helena, he had several interviews with the emperor Napoleon (see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817; McLeod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. Alceste, 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event of his government was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to United Kingdom|Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. On his return to England he lived-in retirement till his death in March 1857. start box succession box | before=Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|The Marquess of Hastings | title=Governor-General of India | years=1823–1828 | after=Lord William Bentinck|The Lord William Bentinck end box start box succession box two to one | before1=New Creation | title1=Earl Amherst | after=William Pitt Amherst, 2nd Earl Amherst|William Pitt Amherst | before2=Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Montreal|Jeffrey Amherst | title2=Earl Amherst|Baron Amherst | years1= | years2= end box
Category:1773 births|Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Category:1857 deaths|Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Category:Governors-General of India|Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Category:Peers|Amherst, William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst".
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