You, O King, live beyond the confines of many seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have despatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial....  To show your devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country’s produce.  I have read your memorial:  the earnest terms in which it is cast reveal a respectful humility on your part, which is highly praiseworthy.

He goes on to explain, with the patient manner appropriate in dealing with an importunate child, why George III’s desires cannot possibly be gratified.  An ambassador, he assures him, would be useless, for: 

If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial Dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilization, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization, you could not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your alien soil.  Therefore, however adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained thereby.

Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State; strange and costly objects do not interest me.  I ... have no use for your country’s manufactures. ...It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter.

He can understand the English desiring the produce of China, but feels that they have nothing worth having to offer in exchange: 

“Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders.  There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.  But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves,” the limited trade hitherto permitted at Canton is to continue.

He would have shown less favour to Lord Macartney, but “I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire.”  He concludes with the injunction:  “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!”

What I want to suggest is that no one understands China until this document has ceased to seem absurd.  The Romans claimed to rule the world, and what lay outside their Empire was to them of no account.  The Empire of Chien Lung was more extensive, with probably a larger population; it had risen to greatness at the same time as Rome, and had not fallen, but invariably defeated all its enemies, either by war or by absorption.  Its neighbours were comparatively barbarous, except the Japanese, who acquired their