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

In the <em>Letter of Credence from King George III to Emperor Qianlong</em> (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 <em>Majiaerni fanghua shiliao huibian</em> 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).