Letter of Credence from King George III to Emperor Qianlong (1793)

In the Letter of Credence from King George III to Emperor Qianlong (1793), the British king appealed to the Chinese emperor to expand the trade between Britain and China, establish a permanent embassy to the imperial court, and cede a small island for British residence. This letter has two translated Chinese versions. One is the Qing court version, translated by European missionaries serving in the Qing court and collected in Majiaerni fanghua shiliao huibian 马戛尔尼访华史料汇编 [Archives of Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China] (1996, 172-175); the other is the embassy version translated by Catholic priests (H. Wang, 2013b) and kept in the British National Archives (FO 1048/1) (H. Wang, 2020, p. 13).